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us J.(,3q. T

HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY

THE GIFT OF

RALPH BARTON PERRY

ProteMor of Philoaopby

COLONIAL

- . F»^-. ■

^H.Xi^i^^

IHK SAllIH HOMFSTKAh,
SHARON, CONNKmcn T

TO THE BELOVED MEMORIES

OF MY

FATHER AND MOTHER

THESE SIMPLE RECORDS OF THEIR

ANCESTORS
ARE LOVINGLY INSCRIBED

(.39. r

HAIVAID 00UC6C LIBRAIY

6IFT OF

BUPN BARTON PERKY

JUL 28 1933

CONTENTS

THE ALPHABET OF COLONIAL STUDY
Sources of Information. Superiority of Letter*
and Diaries over other Records. Pilgrim, Puri-
tan, and Cavalier; Dutchman, Huguenot, and
Palatine. Rapidity of Colonial Growth.

THE CONTENTS OF AN ANCIENT

GARRET

Sharon, Connecricut. When and how the
Township was Settled. The Old House: how
it was Consmictedi who Lived in it; the Papers
it Contained.

A PIONEER PASTOR

Rev. Henry Smith of Wethers field, Connecticut.
Troubles of a Wilderness Church. Letter from
Samuel Smith of Hadley, Massachusetts, in
1698, describing Early Days in Wethersfield.
The Minister's Will.

A PIONEER HOME IN CONNECTICUT
The Coming of Mrs. Margaret Lake and the
Family of Captain John Gallup. Voyage of the
Abigail. The First Homesteads of the Second
Generation. Household Labor. A Bride's
Fumishings.

TWO HOUSES IN OLD NEW AMSTER-
DAM

The Long Step &om Connecticut to New York.
Comforts of the Dutch. Mr. David CodwiM

CHAPTBR

Tells of the Houses of his Grandfa
Niclaes Evertsen, Grandson of Liei
mind Jan Evertsen.

VI THE CARES OF THE HUYSV

Every Homestead a Manufectory.
Good Providers. Spinning and Wea
and Candle Making. Washing.
Yeast. Butter Making. Nursery L

VII THE ESCAPE OF A HUGUENOT

Edict of Nantes and its Revocation,
guenot Exodus. Arts Carried Abroac
L' Estrange. A Huguenot ** Lady in
An Effectual Disguise. To New R
Way of England.

VIII HUGUENOT HOMES IN NE

CHELLE

Life less Toilsome than with Most of
nists. Attachment to the Services
Church. Refugees not Colonists.
the Land of their Adoption. Little D
of House Furnishing.

IX HUGUENOT WAYS IN AMERK

Alterations in Names. Resentment to^
Native Land. Differences between F
English Calvinists. Schools Establish<
Huguenots. Amusements, and Games of

X A COLONIAL WEDDING . .

Gallup and Chesebrough. Rev. Williar
ington of Saybrook, Connecticut.
Customs. Quality and Comm' \\t}
Uninvited Guests. A Valiant Supper.

XI UFE ON AN EARLY COI

MANOR

Terms of Grant. The First Ladv of
ingston Manor. Extent of the Manor,

^ w

XII PROSPEROUS DAVS ON A LATER

MANOR 197

Incmae of the Clan in Numbert tad Wodth.
Education. Margaret Beeckman livingtion,
Idst Lady of the Manor of Clennont.

Xlir A COUNTRY PARSON'S WIPE . . . aoj
Lake, Gallup, Cheaebrough, and Woithington;
Elliott, Chauncey, Hopkins, Ely, and Good-
rich. The Parsonage and its Fumiihingi. Fire
and Flint.

XIV HOME CARES IN A PARSONAGE . . lai
Madam Smith's Muldplied Employments. Small
Incomes and Many Out-goes. Extracts from
Madam Smith's Reminiscences, The Small-
pox. Hospitality. The Preaching of WhiteSeld.

XV SUNDAYS AND OTHER DAYS IN THE

PARSONAGE 133

From Sunset to Sunset. The Weekly Ablution.
Care of the Teeth. Long Services. Catechiz-
ing. Sunday Night. Fashions and Clothes.
An Evening of Sacrifice.

XVI MANOR LADIES AS REFUGEES . . .247
Flight of the Livingstons from Kingston and
Clermont to Litchfield County, Coimecticui, The
Young Van Rensselaer, Westerlo. Vaughan's
Raid. Ladies as Hostlers. Husking Bees.

XVII A UTERARY CLUB IN 1779-81 . . .267
The "Clio." Two Diaries. The Sharon
Uterary Club, Canfield, Spencer. News of
V'x'try. Tailors and Cbthes. Chancellor
Kent. Noah Webster. Holmes the Historian.

XVIII V£w ENGLAND'S FESTIVE DAY . . 189
'^^^'viktffymg in 1779. Expedients. Abun-
^*»i HospitaKty. Abaence of Beef. Celery.
"'^^Wr-dinner Entertainineut. Two Oranges.

XIX A SNOW-SHOE JOURNEY ....
A BiBvd in 1779. litchfidd't Buty I>,
Judge Tippiiig Reeve ind Famil)'. From Ui
field to Woodbniy on Snow-ihoei. Panon B«
diet.

XX A NEW YORK EVENING FROUC .
Mr. Divid Codwtte Tell* of an Evening it 1
Rhindander Homestead, Candles and Cant
d^fxng. The Supper. The "Fire Dano
Tlie Fndi^ Cup.

XXI A MAN OF ENTERPRISE ....
Mescal Man and Merchant, An Early Med
Conrentiaa. A Captain of Volunteers, i
mxii^ MofK^ and Supplies. A Solvent Debt
Compantive Prices. Removal 10 Vennont.

XXU A COUNTRY PARSON'S USEFUL LI
Aacaton. Penonal Chancterisdca. Smi
poz in Sharon, "Old Jack" and "Bi
G -■" A LetMHi in Kindliness. Influei
mth iDdian*. Tbe Sabbath Made ibr Man.

XXm "WELL DONE. GOOD AND FAIT
FUL"

The Meeting-hoose at ■ News Depot, ASeaa
tS Ksconragement. A Meeting-house of 1
K^Mcnth Century. The News ofBurgoyni
A Half-century Sermon. E

CHAPTER I

THE ALPHABET OF COLONIAL STUDY

Sources of Information.

Superiority of Letters and

Diariesoverother Records.

Pilgrim, Puritan, and

Cavalier; Dutchman,

Huguenot, and Palatine.
Rapidity of Colonial

jITH the gatheringof relics to make

WwH siJ'^^'''^ exhibits at the centennial
kL celebration of our national inde-
r»s pendence, there came a genera!
awakening of interest in all things
pertaining to the history of our Revolutionary War
and of the few years preceding it. Beginning with
an interest only in this special period, the slow fire
spread backward until now there arc few persons
— at least, of English, Dutch, Huguenot, or even of
the late-coming Palatine descent — who are not
increasingly interested in all that pertains to the
earliest colonists. Especially is this true — proba-
bly because reliable information concerning it is so
difficult of access — in whatever pertains to the
home life, the employments, the enjoyments, the
hardships, and the habits of our ancestors in those
far-away days when the comforts and conveniences
which they possessed were, as compared with
our own, proportionately as those of the Indians
when compared with those of the English in 1620.
So far, it must be confessed that, while the
amount of information painfully gathered from

town records, wills, inventories, letters, traditions,
and relics is not inconsiderable, we are not as greatly
the gainers by it all as we should be. We have the
alphabet, but we do not yet know how to make
words, still less how to construct the sentences,
which shall tell us the true story of the most in-
teresting beginning which any people has ever
had.

Our national life has not been one of growth
from savagery up, through many wars, through
centuries of depression and oppression, of slow
disintegrations and slower constructions, but is
the result of deliberate purpose on the part of the
majority of the first colonists, of no matter what
creed or nationality, to occupy this wide, wild,
new land, free to the first comer, and bring to it
all the best of the institutions of the Old World,
while leaving behind all that was worn out, all
that had served its day.

For this reason, if for no other, the smallest
traces of our national beginnings should be sought
for; but not as one gathers pebbles on the sea-
shore, to bring them home, turn them over, and
throw them away. Every old record, every homely
detail, every scrap of old furniture, every bit of
home handicraft, above all, every familiar old let-
ter or diary or expense-book, should be treasured ;
not always each for its own sake, but because each
thing, however valueless by itself, is a letter in our
alphabet, and, when read in connection with

something else, may help in the formation of a
word hitherto unknown to us.

In forming pictures of home life in the colonies,
dates, places, and social classes must all be most
carefully considered. Slow-moving as those pre-
electric days now seem to us, there yet was a con-
stant and, when rationally considered, a rapid
progression, from the moment of the first landing
at Jamestown onward.

The life conditions which prevailed in the New
England colonies from 1620 to 1640 were by no
means the same as those which prevailed in the
same colonies during the next two decades, and in
the other colonics they were at no time quite the
same as in New England. The settlers of Vir-
ginia, Delaware, and Maryland were not of the
same creeds, either political or religious, as those
which prevailed in New England. They had
more money, not having been obliged to make
their flitting under such adverse circumstances, and
climate had also its influence.

The Dutch held very similar religious and politi-
cal views to those of the New England colonists,
butdieir commercial instincts were stronger, their
aggressiveness was less vehement, and their love
of home comforts and knowledge of how to obtain
them were much greater, for during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries Holland was at the head
of the commerce and manufactures of the world.
Besides this, many of the immigrant Hollanders

were either wealthy themselves, or were the well-
provided offshoots from wealthy families who
were disposed to enlarge their estates by commerce
in the new lands.

The first three sets of colonists had passed through
their pioneer stages, and gathered around them-
selves a fair degree of all the accompaniments of
civilization before the advent of the fourth dis-
tinct and considerable body of settlers. These were
the refugee Huguenots. In religion the Hugue-
nots were as Calvinistic in their creed as were
the Puritans and the Dutch, and were fully as
earnest and steadfast in their belief, while the per-
secutions which the Puritans had suffered in Eng-
land could no more be compared with those which
had been endured for nearly two centuries by the
Huguenots than the privations of one of our late
Spanish captives could be compared with the suf-
ferings of the colonists harried by the Indians in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Whether they had been rich or poor in France,
there were very few of the Huguenot refugees
who were not in the depths of poverty when they
reached here. But they were gentle (in both
senses of the word), they were trained in many
arts, and they had the keen perceptions, the cour-
tesy, and the easy adaptability of their race. Home
life among them was different from that of any of
the other colonists, partly because they had the
advantage of coming to a land which had already

J ■*■

_5_

been occupied {or more than threescore years by
laborious, progressive, and intelligent settlers, and
partly because they came from a land which was
in some things more advanced than either Holland
or England. Politically the Huguenots had little
sympathy with either English or Dutch. Their race
was strongly monarchical by instinct; the rights of
the individual man had never assumed their proper
proportions in the eyes of Frenchmen.

The last of the great immigrations was that of
the Palatines. In modem times there never has
been such wholesale abandonment of home and
fatherland as that by these unfortunate members
of a home-loving race, driven by scores of thou-
sands forth from the land of their birth by unen-
durable misery. Their home had been the battle-
ground of Europe. Great kings and petty princes.
Catholics and Protestants, had alike fought over it,
burned its villages, destroyed its crops, leveled its
strongholds, and harried its people until they had
no hope remaining. In sheer desperation they
begged from the compassion of England a passage
to and a home in the wilds of the new land.
Theirs is a history as yet inadequately written, but
it is worthy of the pen of a really good historian,
and when one shall arise from among their descen-
dants theirs will prove to be a worthy and in some
respects an unexampled record.

In studying the lives of the early colonists these
different origins should always be considered.

The one colony must not be judged by another.
The Puritan, — a political as well as a religious
exile, — persecuted for his political views even
more thsin his religious tenets, came here to
found an empire where all his views should have
room and liberty to expand. He was keen-witted,
and, — for bis day^ be it ever understood, — in spite
of his rigid notions of morality, and of all modem
assertions to the contrary, he was no narrower in
his strictness than was the roistering Cavalier in his
laxity of morals. The harshness of the Puritan
toward those who disagreed with him was tender-
ness and mercy compared to the "justice " meted
out to either religious or political dissidents in old
England, or, for that matter, in any other country
in Europe, with the possible exception of Holland,
at that period. Neither man nor nation should be
judged by other than the standards of his time.

The conditions of the Puritan's life were hard,
but full of mental, moral, and physical health.
Whether gentle or simple, he despised no handi-
craft, neglected no means of cultivation, shirked
no duty (nor did he permit any other to do so, if
he could help it), and he fought his way upward,
unhasting, unresting.

The settlers of the fertile Southlands were also
principally of English blood, yet they differed
widely from those of the sterile North. They
were courageous, of course. A minority came
under compulsion, but the majority came of their

own free will, and cowards did not cross the ocean
in those days, when the sea and the wilderness had
real terrors for even the boldest. The love of lib-
erty was in their blood, and both the traditions of
their past and the comparatively genial conditions
by which they were surrounded gave them easy
and comfortable views. If the Englishman of the
North were strenuous, energetic, a warm friend and
a stem foe, he of the South was strong, generous,
and joyous. If each were disposed to look a lit-
tle askance at the other when the world went well
with both, when trouble threatened either the fra-
ternal blood flowed warm and true. We are all
proud of them both — stern Puritan, gay Cavalier.

The Dutchman was milder than the Puritan,
but every way as stiff-necked, and was an inborn
republican as well as an educated Calvinist.
Slower in his perceptions, narrower in his concep-
tions, and more prejudiced than even the Puritan,
his &ults were not so glaring because less aggres-
sive, and the strength of his friendships and family
Sections hid them from the view of those who
lived nearest him. As a mariner and as a trader,
as well as in the arts which tend to make life easier
and more comfortable, he had few equals, and our
country owes much of its subsequent prosperity to
the Dutchman's commercial and industrial instincts.
We are ever grateful to him.

The Huguenot was devout, unambitious, aflfec-
tiotute of heart, artistic, cultivated, adaptable. He

brought to us the arts, accomplishments, and graces
of the highest civilization then known, together
with a sweet cheerfulness ail his own. Not a colony
or a class but was ameliorated by his influence,
and, ccNisciously or unconsciously, we all love
him.

The Palatine came to our shores desperate with
misery. Although Protestant, his hith was not
Calvinistic, neither did it fill so large a place in his
thoughts. To the older colonists he seemed to be
material, almost sordid, in his aims ; but they un-
derstood neither his language nor his desperation.
Perhaps they did not sufficiently try to do sa So
he was left to himself, and so difficult was he of
assimilation that even to-day those of his descen-
dants who live a little c^ from the highways of com-
merce may still be found speaking but very im-
perfect English, if any, and living in self-centered
communities, with little heed of the outside world,
shut off from its influence. Industrious, frugal, un-
progressive, living for himself alone, we still do not
comprehend him.

Now, it is certain, from the nature of things, that
the home lives of all these different bands of colo-
nists must have differed widely. None had luxuries
and few had comforts, as we now understand these
terms, but each had some possessions, some ways,
some deficiencies, and some attainments which be-
longed to none of the others; hence it is that a
knowledge of the home life and personal character-

istics prevalent in one colony does not imply a
knowledge of those of another.

Even the details of domestic life differed some-
what in all the colonies, and a thing sometimes
forgotten is that the house furnishings and personal
habits, as well as the degrees of mental culture,
differ with every advancing decade. Improved
conditions came with a rapidity that was unexam-
pled until that time. Because the first New Eng-
land immigrants were obliged to live in moss-
chinked and mud-plastered log huts, it does not
follow that they long continued to live in them.
In feet, it was but a few years before very substan-
tial and comfortable dwellings were erected by the
better class in all the colonies. The " Old Stone
House" of Guilford, Connecticut, erected in 1639,
is still an exceedingly comfortable and even hand-
some residence, though it has been damaged by
some ill-judged alterations for which there was no
excuse, because they have in no way added to the
convenience or comfort of the inmates.

- Two or three years later than the building of the
Guilford house, there was erected in Hartford,
Connecticut, a two-story house of squared timbers,
covered with overlapping shingles on the sides, for
the Rev. Thomas Hooker. Of this house a cut is
given in Barbour's " Historical Collections of Con-
necticut," which shows it to have been not only a
substantial, but, though a simple, yet a noticeable
mansion for that period in the old England as

well as in the New. The house erected for Mr.
William Whiting about the same time is said to
have been still better. The house furnishings of
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Whiting, as inventoried after
their deaths, would not seem very plentiful or lux-
urious to-day, but, read in connection with the
similar inventories of the same date belonging to
the yeoman or petty gentry classes in England, do
not show many marked differences. Even when
compared with the inventories of the larger landed
proprietors in England, there is not much to choose
in the way of comforts, though undoubtedly there
is in that of articles of luxury and display. In
these there is as much difference between the pos-
sessions of Mr. Hooker and Mr. William Whit-
ing of Hartibrd and those of an English gentleman
of high social grade, as there is between an English
nobleman's belongings and those of a Frenchman
of similar rank, or those of a Hollander of the rich
merchant class at the same period. To the French
nobleman or the untitled but wealthy Dutchman,
the interior of the English nobleman's castle must
have seemed to the full as barren of beauty and of
comfort as the homes of the Hartford settlers
would have seemed to all of them.

A few years later than the deaths of Mr. Hooker
and Mr. Whiting, the recorded inventories grow
longer and fuller. Stools gradually disappear from
them and chairs are increasingly in evidence.
Forks are not named until well on to the opening

of the seventeenth century, and then they are of
silver, and are first mentioned in the will of a citi-
zen of Boston in the last quarter of the seventeenth
century, at about which time they seem to have
come into use among the upper classes in England,
having been introduced there from France and
Holland.

It may be taken for granted that the wealthiest
settlers of New England in 1630 were a little better
off in comforts than the poorest of 1650, and so on.
The advance was continuous. So much industry,
intelligence, energy, and invention were applied to
the work that the progress was marvelous.

The same process was going on in all the col-
onies. The Dutchman, when he became an Eng-
lish subject, did not change his character or his
ways, but his growth was steady, if^ perhaps, a trifle
slower than that of his English neighbor. It
must be remembered that he started fi-om a higher
plane of comfort (Holland being much in advance
of England in this regard), so that by the middle
of the eighteenth century both stood upon about
the same level in these things. In the meanwhile,
both had been greatly helped by the incoming of
the artistic, polished, and thrifi:y French element.
The latter brought but few articles of luxury or
even of utility, for, like the persecuted Armenians
who lately sought our shores, the dangers and dif-
ficulties of their escape made such importations
impossible; but they brought the manufacturing

and decorative skill to supply all deficiencies, and
also the power and the will to impart their skill,
and a few of them, like the Jays of Bedford, bad
been able to send some of their wealth to this
country in advance of their own emigration. Very
little of all that was left behind was ever regained.
As sources of knowledge concerning household
possessions of the colonists, wills and the inventories
accompanying them have been too much relied
upon — not because they are not accurate, for this,
of course, they are, but because they do not cover
ground enough. As a rule, the larger the estate
the less likely was there to be an inventory of
household possessions, their appraisement and divi-
sion among heirs being usually made by agreement.
In several distinct lines of colonial £imilies which
I have traced back through seven and eight genera-
tions to the years beginning with 1 630, I have dis-
covered comparatively few wills, and, after about
1650, these were seldom accompanied by inven-
tories of household possessions. Even when an
estate had been administered upon, in ordinary
cases the more purely personal property had appa-
rently been divided by lot or private agreement,
without public appraisal. Especially is this found
to be the case in families numbering lawyers among
its members. In such families, when wills were
made, some person was nearly always named as
residuary legatee, in order, probably, to prevent
the necessity for giving detailed information of

such purely private matters to a curious local
public.

From the extent and variety of my researches in
this Hne, I have come to have little doubt that this
aversion to recorded inventories of household pos-
sessions was stronger in proportion to the wealth
of the deceased. Hence it is unfair to suppose
that the inventories which remain give accurate
ideas of the kinds and qualities of the household
furnishings of all the classes in a colony.

Perhaps it is due to too great a reliance upon
such sources of information that many persons are
in the habit of thinking that our ancestors possessed
only the plainest, most uncouth, and most comfort-
less of furnishings. This was quite true of even
the wealthy among the first comers, but it speedily
ceased to be true even of those who were not
wealthy. The first immigrants among the Puri-
tans had not a floor carpet among their possessions ;
but the number used in England in the first half
of the seventeenth century was small, and they
were considered quite in the light of effeminate
luxuries. By 1660, or a little later, the always
ugly and hard-to-be-swept, but all-enduring (and
much-inflicring) rag carpet came into use, while
those of the better class were usually provided with
several of the excellent and easily swept but equally
ugly yam carpets, which could be and were made
in those private families who were rich enough to
provide the material, own the looms, and pay for

the weaving. A few fine carpets were imported
from the Netherlands, but only by the wealthiest
colonists. By the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury, the yam carpets were made and sold by vil-
lage weavers, and had thus become comparatively
plentiful. I find no evidence that rag carpets
were used in the better sort of houses, except in
rear passages and inferior rooms. Not long ago it
was desired to restore one of the living-rooms in
the most venerated house in North America to its
condition in the years between 1776 and i8cx),and
preparations were made by one of our patriotic
societies to cover its floor with a rag carpet. This
seems an error in judgment. As Washington im-
ported most of the finer clothes for himself and his
immediate family, as well as their rich bed-hang-
ings, their handsomest articles of furniture, and the
best of wines for his family consumption, it is hardly
likely that he did not follow the fashion of other
gentlemen of his social rank, and import carpets for
his best rooms, while using those of woven yam
for all inferior purposes.

At one time there was a general impression that
all the immigrant families of good standing had
brought over with them many rich articles of
furniture, much silver plate, and even many articles
of porcelain. Later on it had to be acknowledged
that nothing but the most essential of household
furnishings could have been permitted on vessels
which were already entirely overcrowded with pas-

sengers and the animals which were essential to life
and agriculture in the new land, while " Maj^nver
tea-pots " became a laughing-stock when it was re-
membered that tea did not come into use in Great
Britain until many years after the landing of the
Pilgrims.

After this there set in a reaction, and now the
pendulum has swung almost as far the other way.
While it is true that fine furnishings were the ex-
ception in the colonies as long as they continued
to be such, it is untrue that there were not many
families well supplied with all the comforts and
luxuries that were usual in families of similar rank
in old England. There is now in the possession
of a descendant of the original owner, and in perfect
preservation, a handsomely inlaid mahogany aicjgc^
board of the sort known as Chippendale^ which v
was imported by a Connecticut former in 1 7.^7, at a
cost, including that of transportation, of thirty-nine
pounds fifteen shillings sterling, as witnessed by
the time-yellowed receipted bill of the maker,
which is still preserved. This cannot have been
an isolated instance, yet we are now asked to believe
that the stem conditions in the first halfcentury in
the colonies prevailed until after the colonial period
had passed by.

The second error is as great as the first. The
colonial stage of our existence was one of continual
advancement The colonists were of different
races, of different social grades, of differing stages

of intellectual growth, of varying degrees of wealth ;
hence they cannot be judged by inflexible stan-
dards, and colonial life should be carefully studied,
almost as scholars study the history of ancient
Nineveh and Babylon. From the scanty fragments
of a long-neglected past we may gather our alpha-
bet and learn to construct our sentences aright.

CHAPTER II

THE CONTENTS OF AN ANCIENT GARRET

^^Qop^^

CHAPTER II.

THE CONTENTS OF AN
ANCIENT GARRET.

Sharon, Connecticut.

When and how the Town-
ship was Settled.

The Old House: how it

was Constructed; who

Lived in it ; the Papers

it Contained.

°^oQ(

?Or}oO^HE beautifiil village of Sharon, ly-
A_^ A/> ing picturesquely along one of the
I broad natural terraces which form
\j \7 the western slopes of the southern

O^j^^^^ spurs of the Berkshire Hills, was
not one of the earliest settlements of Connecticut.
A few stragglers, mostly from the banks of the
Hudson River, had reared their temporary homes
in this vicinity from time to time, but these had for
the most part faded away when the township was
laid out, in 1733, and it was not until several years
after this that there were enough inhabitants to
justify an application to the Assembly for an act of
IncorporatiorL Hence it would hardly be expected
that papers relating to the very earliest colonial
periods should be found here. But the first settlers
of Sharon were not fresh immigrants from the Old
World; they were all, or nearly all, descended
from the pioneer colonists of New England, and
naturally brought with them some of the relics
and records that their parents and grandparents
had accumulated.

In Sharon, among several fine houses of late

colonial dates, is one in which, during more than
a hundred and thirty years, six generations of
one family have lived quiet and happy but full
and not uninteresting lives.

In the wide and lofty garrets of this house are
stored many thousands of letters and other papers
such as generations of cultivated and undestrucdve
persons would naturally accumulate around them.
Some of these papers are packed in oaken chests
which had brought household plenishings ^ across
the water " in the early days of the seventeenth
century ; some are in other chests of cherry wood,
which were probably made in this country in the
first decades of the colonial period ; some are in
the hair-covered, brass-nailed, and round-topped
trunks of a later day ; some are discovered packed
in bandboxes which may once have contained
elaborate periwigs, or immense and costly Leghorn
bonnets; and again we find papers, valuable or
useless, as the case may be, tucked away under the
eaves in old baskets of Indian make, or in open
pine-wood boxes, and even in barrels.

Some years ago, Mrs. E. P. Terhune (Marion
Harland) visited this old house, and in her valuable
and altogether charming book concerning " Some
Colonial Homesteads and their Stories" has men-
tioned the old garret and its papers. She says :

" We climb the stairs to the great garret. A
large, round window, like an eye, is set in a gable ;
the roof slopes above a vast space, where the towns-

people used to congregate for dance and speech-
making and church ' entertainments ' before a pub-
lic hall was built; . . . and in the middle of the
dusky spaciousness, a long, long table over which
is cast a white cloth. . . . Family papers! . . .
Hampers, corded boxes, and trunks full of them !
The hopes, the dreads, the loves, the lives of nine
generations of one blood and name.*' But the last
clause is hardly correct The nine generations
who are represented here are of several names and
even of differing nationalities; but the blood of
them all is mingled in the veins of their descen-
dants, the present owners of the old house.

During all the years that these old papers were
accumulating they were carefully dusted once or
twice a year, but not always replaced in their va-
rious receptacles with the reverential care which
they deserved. Indeed, it is known that during
the dozen years or so which succeeded 1845, ser-
vants who had neglected to provide kindlings for
the fires were occasionally permitted to use the
garrefs store of papers for their purpose. Not-
withstanding this culpable carelessness, great quan-
tities still remained at the time that my interest in
them was first aroused, now a great many years
ago. From these papers the larger part of the
materials for the following chapters has been culled,
though some of the things that are here related are
on the authority of femily traditions, notes of which
I began taking when I was eleven years old, as I

heard them narrated by parents, grandparents, and
great-uncles and -aunts. These notes I continued
to take at intervals for about eighteen years, by the
end of which time many of the beloved narrators
had gone to rejoin those virhom they had held
in such £iithful and affectionate remembrance.
Whenever anything is told on the authority of
traditions only, it is thus expressly stated; but
most of the information is from the abundant store
of written sources.

The house in which the before-mentioned papers
had been preserved is a fine specimen of the best
period of our colonial architecture. The part which
is now a capacious wing, running back from the
main structure, was the first to be erected, and was
reared on the foundations of a still earlier building.
This first portion of the new home was completed
about 1 765 and was in itself a spacious dwelling.
The cellars and kitchen were in its basement, and
a very large dining-hall, with two other good-sized
rooms, were on its first floor. These were flanked
by piazzas (or rather stoeps) on the north and
south sides. The wing's bedrooms were on the
second floor, with windows in the long, sloping
roof, whose peak was filled by a garret of good
dimensions.

In this broad and comfortable dwelling, the
owner, Simeon Smith, M.D., lived with his &mily
while the very much larger main house was in the
process of construction. And a slow process it was

J3_

in those laborious days ! Just when the wing was
begun we do not know, but as it is of the same
well-cut stone as the main house, which was not
finished until some time during the Revolutionary
War, we may hardly credit it with consuming
much less than three years. There were then no
steam-drills to assist in cutting the Bnely fitted
stones. Watei^power sawmills existed in this
region at the time, and such planks as were used
in the building were mostly sawed by them; but
all the heavy timbers — and very heavy they are
— appear to have been hewn with the carpenter's
broadax, while the matchings of the floor-boards
were all cut by hand.

The walls of both the wing and the main house
were very solidly built of deftly fitted stones, laid
with a fine regard for shape and color, and are
ftom sixteen inches to two feet in thickness. The
windows are surrounded by ornamental settings of
red brick, which are of an unusually large size.
The rear wall of the main house was built up
against the exterior of the western gable of the
wing, and the two walls thus joined are fifty-two
inches thick where a large doorway connects the
two structures. It is said that the foundations of
the main house were begun before the completion
of the walls of the wing, and were allowed to stand
through the frosts of several successive winters " so
that they might be well settled." The whole
work was under the direction of a Genoese archi-

tect, who is stated to have been a political exile,
and who brought some of his countrymen as assis-
tants. The mortar he used is to-day as firm as the
stone it cements, and is the admiration of modem
architects and masons. I have often heard my
grandfather say that his great-uncle, for whom the
house was built, had told him that the Grenoese
was so jealous lest some one should discover the
secret of this mortar that he set guards and took
other precautions to keep away all intruders while
he was mixing it. Probably the secret of its en-
during quality is in the feet that very finely pow-
dered stone and brick were used in the place of
sand. With the purely manual labor of those
days, this alone would have made the building a
slow affair.

The foundations being considered sufficiently
settled, the superstructure of the main building be-
gan to rise in 1773, and was roofed and its walls
plastered by the opening of the campaign of 1775.
From this time onward there was little thought to
bestow upon so personal a matter as the building
of a dwelling-house. Country-building was a
much more important business.

In the early summer of 1 775, the widowed Mrs.
Samuel Smith, formerly of Suffield, Connecticut,
and then living with her youngest son, Simeon,
saw her second son, the Rev. Cotton Mather
Smith, depart as chaplain to Colonel Hinman's
regiment, in General Schuyler's army at Ticon-

Probably even at this time papers had begun to
accumulate in the spaces under the steep slopes of
the hipped roof between the dormer-windows along
the sides and ends of the old garret ; for, in 1 788,
Dr. Smith, writing from Vermont, requests his
nephew to "Look in the big cedar chest which
Mother brought from SufBeld, and which stands at
the very south end of my big Garret, and you will
find there the deeds of the Judge Badcock form
which I wish to have sent to me by some safe
hand;*

The mass of papers remaining here include
many thousands of letters, several diaries, a great
number of legal documents of both public and
private natures, as well as piles of antiquated led-
gers, bound, for the most part, in a sort of undressed
leather, and big enough to have required an entire
sheepskin for each tome. This mass of unassorted
papers spreads over all the years, fi'om the landings
of the earlier immigrants in Massachusetts and
Connecticut, down to near the middle of the pres-
ent century. Naturally, the number of documents
that have survived from the hundred years begin-
ning with 1636 is not as large as we would wish;
but fi'om about 1730 the number began to increase,
and from 1 754 onward the material — though often
leaving gaps just where they are most unwelcome
— is remarkably abundant.

From these sources I have drawn what I believe
to be, though incomplete, yet, as far as they ex-

tend, faithful pictures of the home life of the better
class of persons in several places and periods of our
colonial existence.

Such information as we may gather from town
and church records is invaluable in its way; but
from such sources we need not expect to get any
but the scantiest glimpses of the home life. We
now have daily newspapers and society journals to
chronicle public and private events, and they cer-
tainly tell a great deal about the daily life of all
classes among us ; yet if, two centuries hence, these
things should be the only testimony that had sur-
vived, can we conceive that our homes might be
justly pictured from them ? Or should we fere
any better if judged by the records of the law-
courts? Yet these would be riches compared
with the meager sources which have come to us
from colonial days. Concerning the homes and
home life of the colonists our best materials must
come from the comparatively few traditions that
were committed to paper long enough ago to be
granted a measure of authenticity, and from the
relatively few contemporary family papers which
have escaped from the inevitable losses by fires,
removals, and — worst of all — the destruction by
the Gallios who " cared for none of these things,'*
until a tardily awakened interest in our ancestry
has caused many of the heedless transgressors to
remember and shudder at the bonfires fed by such
unprized but now priceless material.

This little book relates what I have patiently
gleaned concerning the home life of a few £iirly
representative families in the colonies of New
York and Connecticut These families were ori-
ginally of several nationalities — English, Dutch,
Scotch, and French Huguenots; yet, in the course
of generations, all became related. Papers once
belonging to or concerning each one of them, some
of them unknown to each other even by name
until long years after the papers were written, and
some of them never so known, have long been
lying side by side in the silent garret, and the
descendants of the writers of most of the diaries
and correspondence may now be found scattered
from the Atlantic to the Pacific and firom Canada
to the Gulf.

In the earliest of these papers we find evidence
of great privations heroically endured — not firom
hope of worldly advantage, but fi'om the highest
of mdtives. The gently born and bred, the con-
scientious laborer, the strictest Puritan, the Scotch
Presbyterian, the sturdy Dutch Calvinist, and the
patient Huguenot were all alike upheld by their
sturdy faith in God and righteousness. They
made mistakes enough, all of them — the Puritan
perhaps more than the rest, because he was Anglo-
Saxon, and therefore could never imagine himself
to be in the wrong about any matter, and, in the
large generosity of his nature, was always ready to
instruct less gifted mortals, who did not always

appreciate his unasked services at the value he set
upon them. But the errors of the Puritan, like
the errors of most well intcntioned persons, are but
the defects of his qualities, and a vast deal too much
has been made of them.

It is a law of nature that those who have had
the hardest lives shall become the most rigid in
character, and the New-Englanders have always
had the feme of having fulfilled this natural law to
an undue, even to an unnatural, extent, being harsh
to cruelty to all who displeased them, including
their own sons and daughters; but in this garret
fu!! of papers, mostly written by persons who were
Calvinists of Calvinists, Puritans of the straitest
sect, I am happy to state that I have found many
evidences of kindnesses most tenderly bestowed
and gratefully received, and of deeds of a large-
minded tolerance and charity, as well as of tender
and even demonstrative affection, including a good
deal of jocose familiarity between parents and chil-
dren. On the other hand, I have found record of
but very few things that manifest intolerance or hard
feelings ; and these were all in the earlier years,
when the harshness engendered by the persecutions
from which the colonists had fled and by the ter-
rors of the wilderness to which they had come had
not had time to mellow into patience and forbear-
ance. Neither (except in the papers relating to
suits at law which had been conducted by or be-
fore one of the ablest lawyers and judges of his

time, and with which none of the femilies or per-
sons connected with those whose lives we picture
had anything to do) is there aught to show malice,
trickery, or disgrace of any sort. These family
records are simple, but, thank Grod ! they are clean.

The material hardships of the new land were
very great, but most severely felt were the trials of *
homesickness, the longing for a sight or a token
of those who had been left in the homes beyond
the sea, and the lack of facilities for the mental
culture of their children. The determination to
reduce the latter difficulty as soon as might be was
evidenced in the early establishment of the two
upper-grade schools which were ambitiously termed
the colleges of Harvard and Yale, so called not
because of what they were or could be at the start,
but because of the high standing to which it was
confidently hoped they would ultimately attain.

Rudimentary schools were defective in many
ways, but the teachers did their best to make zeal
atone for the lack of other essentials. The grand-
children of the first immigrants appear to have
suffered much more from the want of proper in-
struction than did the preceding and the next fol-
lowing generation, but never, from first to last, did
they cease to set the highest value upon intellectual
cultivation or fail of using every means in their
power to secure for their children the advantages
of a "polite education," a phrase which is repeated
hundreds of times in these old letters. Spelling

have heen feithfuUy preserved in the unaffected
chronicles of fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, friends and lovers, who wrote for the limited
circle of those whom they loved and who loved
them ; and prove them to be worthy of the love
of those who came after them.

t.'.'-- '4 * 'Ll\

CHAPTER III.

A PIONEER PASTOR.

Rev. Henry Smith of
Wethersficld, Connecti-
cut.
' Troubles of a Wilderness \
Church.
Letter from Samuel Smith
of Hadley, Massachu-
setts, in 1698, describing I
Early Days in Wethers-
field.
The Minister's Will

V:t^^m ^

"IN New England the life of femily,
church, and town began together.
The immigrants mostly came in
families. Of bachelors there were a
few ; but these, by wise forethought,
were attached, at least temporarily, to some one of
the families very soon after the landing, if not
actually during the voyage. As the earliest colo-
nists were almost wholly persons who came here
through religious motives, such heads offamilies
as were of the most social note were naturally
among the most active in church matters, and
therefore in those of the town; for during many
years the church was practically the town also,
the elders or deacons of the one usually being the
selectmen of the other.

The church edi6ce could not be erected at as
early a date as the houses ; but in many cases the
church had been organized even before the selec-
tion of the town site, and the most commodious
of the dwellings was used as a meeting-house as
soon as it could afford a shelter from the weather.
By prescriptive rights the ministers were the lead-
as

3fi

ing citizens in each town. They were often, per-
haps generally, men of gentle birth, and usuaUy
graduates of one of the leading universities — most
frequently of Cambridge, that •* nursery of Puritan-
ism "; thus they were naturally the social as well
as the spiritual leaders of their people. As eccle-
siastics they seem to have deemed themselves, and
to have been esteemed by their congregations, to
be divine-right priests and Levites, with authority
to declare and enforce the law of the Lord. Yet
it is said that the title of Reverend was not used in
New England until 1670; ministers before that
time being called Mister, Pastor, Teacher, or Elder,
save in a few instances where deceased ministers
were spoken of as Reverend Elders. To their
honor be it spoken that, notwithstanding their
conceded superiority, there were very few of these
ministers who did not bear themselves as servants
under authority and strictly accountable to the
Master whom they loyally served for the just ex-
ercise of the power which he had delegated to
them. They ruled their people, but it was with a
father's despotism — as loving and as gentle as it
was strong.

With a few exceptions, the rule of the pastors
was, for more than a century, almost unquestioned,
because it was in the main both wise and unselfish.
In the family life of the colonial pastors we find
the beginnings of all that is best in the history of
our country : the charity that begins at home, but

is not confined to family, church, or township; the
warm affections, the sturdy honesty, the firm ad-
herence to what is deemed to be right; the cou-
rageous confession when a wrong is recognized,
and, as speedily as may be, a contrite atonement
made. It has been said of the half-century pastor-
ate of a descendant of the pioneer pastor the faint
traces of whose footsteps we are now about to fol-
low, — and the words apply to many others, — that
" The town's history from the day of the Pastor's
installation might almost be said to be his biogra-
phy, with a few footnotes of other things. . . . He
was a kind of college in himself . . . sending out,
like class after class, the influences, the growths
and inspirations of his large nature upon the lives
of the men and women of his flock."

Trumbull, in his history of Connecticut, having
previously designated the chief settlers of Windsor
and Hartford, names those of Wethersfield, giving
Mr. Henry Smith as among the latter, and adds :
"These were the civil and religious Fathers of a
Colony that formed its free and happy constitution,
they were its legislators and some of the chief
pillars of the church and commonwealth, they . . ,
employed their ability and their estates for the
prosperity of the Colony."

Nearly half, if not more than half, of the stanch
first settlers of Connecticut had left England after
the opening of the eleven years of terror which be-
gan with the prorogation of Parliament in 1629.

During these rears Ardibishc^ Laud and die Earl
of Strafibrd were held bj die loyal-hearted among
the people to be responsible for all the sins of their
master, and doubtless some of die odium that the
advisers received was richly merited; but Laud,
at least, although a bigot and a £uiatic, was both
able and honest, while Charies had all the bigotry
and the £inaticism, without the honesty, of him
whom he made his tooL

Very heavy fines, the loss of stipends jusdy due,
' and imprisonment for too great freedom of speech,
were among the minor punishments inflicted upon
the clergy and laymen who did not acquiesce in the
doctrines inculcated by those in authority. These,
and the despair of better days coming in the old
England, were the considerations which drove the
great body of our Puritan settlers to take the
desperate step of emigrating to the New England.
Even this was not permitted without much oppo.
sition from the officers of the crown. A few
persons would meet privately, agree upon one or
two men as leaders, and empower them to secure
and charter a suitable ship, shipmaster, and crew,
and to lay in the necessary stores for the voyage
and the subsequent plantation in the wilderness.
Those who wished to join the adventure were
obliged to sell their landed estates or other prop-
erty, and also to purchase their personal supplies,
mostly at a great disadvantage on account of the
necessary secrecy. At all ports of possible depar-

k'-iv

ture the government's spies were constantly on the
lookout to report tokens of intention to escape.
Detection made arrest certain, and imprisonment
and confiscation of property almost as certain.

The cost of transportation of human beings, cat-
tle, or freight, in the miserable little vessels of
the time, was — considering the difference in the
purchasing power of money — enormous. The
company which went to Watertown, Massachu-
setts, brought with them one hundred and eighty
servants, whose passage cost the company an ave-
rage of something over eighty-three dollars each,
which was probably equivalent to about two hun-
dred and fifty dollars of our present currency. At
this rate the transportation of a large femily, with
servants and domestic animals, agricultural imple-
ments, other essential tools and provisions, not
only for the voyage, but for twelve or more months
thereafter, and even the most modest outfits of per-
sonal and household effects, must have gone fax
toward exhausting the funds which, the adventurers
might have derived from the necessarily disadvan-
tageous sales of their property.

It was from Watertown that a great part of the
Connecticut Colony came. Some persons were
sent ahead, in the summer of 1635, to prepare
temporary quarters for the families. The latter,
numbering sixty persons in all, men, women, and
children, began to move in Ocjober of the same
year. The journey, which was necessarily on foot,

— there being no paths save the Indian trails, and
very few, if any, beasts of burden, — was so long
that winter came weeks before the poor creatures
were nearly ready for it •*By November 15th,"
says Trumbull, " the Connecticut River was frozen
over and the snow upon it was so deep that a con-
siderable number of the cattle that had been so
painfully driven from Massachusetts, could not be
got across the River. The sufferings of man and
beast were extreme. Their principal provisions
and household furniture had been sent around in
several small vessels to come up the River. Several
of these were wrecked. Great numbers of the
cattle perished." The following summer the Rev.
Thomas Hooker headed the second company com-
ing from Watertown. It was a pleasanter coming,
owing to the more propitious season, and made
forever both picturesque and pathetic by the pres-
ence of the litter bearing poor, patient Mrs. Hooker,
carried as tenderly as might be by the willing
hands of her husband's parishioners and fellow-
pioneers.

Although the Rev. Henry Smith is historically
called the " first settled pastor of the first settled
town in Connecticut," it is not probable that he
came with either of the first two bands firom
Watertown, but with a later one. A few log
cabins were built in what subsequently became
known as the **town of Weathersfield " even
before the first settlers reached Windsor. Thus

Wcthersfield claims to be the first settled town in
the State, and Mr. Smith was its first settled pastor,
though he was not installed as such until after Mr.
Hooker and Mr. Warham were officiating in
Hartford and in Windsor. It is not recorded just
when Mr. Smith came to Wcthersfield, but he
was residing there and received his allotment at
the first apportionment of the town lands.

Mr. Smith had reached this country, going first
to Watertown, in 1636 or 1637. While the rule
in New England pastorates was that the pastor was
literally as well as figuratively the head of an obe-
dient flock, which paid him all due deference, and
followed his lead as sheep follow the piping of
the shepherd, the pastors who successively essayed
the charge of the church in Wethersfield were the
unfortunate exceptions. In no sense could Mr.
Smith have found his new pastorate a bed of roses.
Besides the privations and hardships common to
all pioneer pastors, there seems to have been a
strong and most unusual element of turbulence in
the membership of this wilderness church, for two
preceding ministers had tried and failed to unite
the members of the congregation sufficiently to
secure a settlement, and the trouble did not im-
mediately cease upon Mr. Smith's installation.
Previous to or about the time of his settlement in
Wethersfield the most prominent of the insurgents,
under advice of the Rev. John Davenport and others,
had removed to Stamford ; yet the restless spirits

who were left found enough to say against Mr.
Smith's ministry during the next few years.
There is evidence tending to show that he may
have been too liberal in his construction of doc-
trinal views, and inclined to too great charity in
matters of personal conduct, to suit the more rigid
among the townsmen. In at least one instance
matters went so far that the pastor was brought
before the General Court on charges the nature of
which is not now apparent ; but it is recorded that
fines which for that day were very heavy were
laid upon certain individuals " for preferring a list
of grievances against Mr. Smith and failing to
prove in the prosecution thereof" From references
to this, which appear in manuscript of about a cen-
tury after this date, referring to this trial as a thing
still remembered, it would seem that Mr. Smith
was opposed to severity in church discipline,
and also to the importation into thte Connecticut
Colony of the bribe to hypocrisy which was offered
by the law restricting to church-members the right
of suffrage in town as well as church matters;
and that he also preferred to believe an accused
man to be innocent until he was proved guilty,
and even then did not believe in proceeding to
extremities until after every gentle means had been
tried in vain.

One cause of animadversion is said to have been
that Mr. Smith had advocated the separation of a
wife from a drunken husband who had frightfully

abused her and her children. This seems to have
been thought by some members of the congrega-
tion to indicate great laxity of moral principle on
the part of the pastor; but evidently the majority
of the people were with him on these and other
disputed points, and so were his friends, Mr.
Thomas Hooker, the beloved pastor of the church
at Hartford, and Mr. Warham of Windsor. An-
other complaint against Mr. Smith was that he
refused to listen to those who brought him reports
concerning alleged infractions of church discipline,
on the ground that many of these things were mat-
ters which lay solely between a man and his
Maker. In the end Mr. Smith carried the church
with him, and when he died, in 1648, he was sin-
cerely mourned even by those who at one time
had " despitefully used " him.

Mr. Smith is said to have been "a scholarly
man of gentle birth and breeding, a persuasive
preacher and a loyal friend." What his salary
may have been does not appear, but the stipends of
other pastors of his day rarclyexceedcd from seventy
to seventy-five pounds per annum. Much of this
nominal sum was paid "in kind," that is, in ferm
produce or in peltries, which last were considered
as the equivalent of cash, always bringing their
fair price in the English markets. One hundred
pounds per annum, paid in very much the same
way, was an exceptionally good salary more than
one hundred and twenty-five years later.

Indians were a very real and imminent danger
in the early days of Wethersfield. Their depre-
dations were frequent, and the dread of them was
never-ceasing. We do not know whether the first
meeting-house of Wethersfield, which was prob-
ably the only one erected during Mr. Smith's pas-
torate, was built of logs or was a frztnc structure,
but we are certain that it was intended to serve
not only as a house of worship but for purposes
of defense in times of danger, and that, whatever
its form or substance, its builders worked in constant
fear for their wives and children, with muskets
ever at hand and sentinels always on duty.

Another thing we suppose that we know, only
because it is true of all other churches of the time,
is that it had no chimney. This lack of provision
for any means of ameliorating the cold of our
winters was not owing, as sometimes believed, to
any foolish prejudice or superstition, or, as some
seem to think, from mere love of hardships and
discomforts on the part of the Puritans, but to the
dread of conflagration. Fireless church edifices
were then universal, both in Europe and America.
Furnaces and even stoves were not, and open fires
are dangerous enough even in houses that are in-
habited and watched. An open wood fire built
in a house that had been closed all the week could
scarcely have accomplished more than to thaw the
frost from the walls into visible streams of chilly
dampness, without greatly raising the temperature

'^'-« *■

•c^

^^ttrii

_45_

by the time that even the prolonged services of
the Puritan Sabbath were 6nished ; and the treach-
erous beds of embers, even after copious waterings,
often proved to be unsafe.

Those who could afford such luxuries curtained
their square pews to keep currents of air from too
great femiliarity, cushioned their otherwise com-
fortless scats, and covered the floors with wolf-
skins and even sometimes with those of the bear,
though the latter were generally too precious for
floors.

At as early a date as time and means permitted,
small " Sabbath Day Houses " were erected at a cer-
tain distance from the sacred edifice. These little
buildings were ftirnishcd with forms and stools,
and here, during the service-time, care-takers were
left and fires maintained. From these the coals
were taken for the small foot-stoves of which
many are still found in old garrets, and which
afforded a degree of comfort to the half-frozen
church-goers, who at intervals between services
were wont to gather in the little houses to warm
themselves and exchange neighborly greetings and
news. Bitter indeed must sometimes have been
their sufferings in cold winter weather, but hardly
as great as the same state of things would cause
to-day, because no one had yet been rendered un-
duly tender by furnace- or steam-heated houses.
There was not then in the colonies anything that
could be termed wealth, but had there been ever

SO much of it, the treasure of an equably wann
temperature could not have been purchased.

Probably the house of the pastor would have
been as well built and furnished as those of his
neighbors, but in the earliest days that is not say-
ing much for either. Even in the stateliest dwell-
ings of England, though there was sometimes a
good deal of luxury and display, there was then
very little of what we should esteem to be the
necessary comforts of life. In this country the in-
ventories of the seventeenth century reveal the
poverty of the land in unmistakable ways. No-
thing was too small to escape enumeration, so we
know that the poorest farm-laborer of to-day is
richer in comforts than the wealthiest of these
pioneers.

Few, if any, of the early houses were of more
than one story in height. They were built of logs,
and rarely contained more than four rooms. An
exception to this was the old stone house of Guil-
ford, Connecticut, built in 1639, which was in-
tended to serve as a fortress as well as the minis-
ter's residence. Exceptional also were the houses
of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and Mr. Whiting of
Hartford at the time of their erection. But it was
not long before well-constructed, durable, and even
handsome dwellings were reared in every colony.

In our own day the lives of pioneers are consid-
ered of the hardest ; yet now all are within com-
paratively easy reach of the base of supplies. The

mMM

Klondike is not now Either from us than old
England was from New England in those early
days. Probably but few of the settlers belonged
to the wealthy class at home, yet many were num-
bered among the substantial landowners, — the
upper-class yeoman and the lower gentry, — accus-
tomed in their own country to all the comforts
then known. Almost all who came between
1628 and 1640 bad fled from the persecution
under Archbishop Laud which had done so much
to bring on the parliamentary wars and the reign
of Cromwell, and such refugees had neither
thought nor hope of returning. All must have
felt their privations keenly, but concerning this
we have little recorded complaint or testimony of
any sort. The difficulties of transmission were so
great that probably few letters were written, and
of these but a small number have descended to us.

In the diary of Juliana Smith, 1779-81, there
exists a copy of a fragment of a reminiscent let-
ter, written in 1699 by the Rev. Henry Smith's
son, Samuel Smith <^ Hadley, Massachusetts,
to his son, Ichabod Smith, residing in Suffield,
Connecticut, apparently in reply to some inquiries
which the latter had made.

Juliana writes :

"Today my Grandmother Smith gave me to
read what is left unbumt of a Letter which was
written to my Great-Grand&ther by his Father &

has permitted mc to copy it. The Letter itself
belongs to my Uncle Dan because he is my Grand-
fether's eldest son. A large part of it was burnt
when my Grandfather's house in Suffield took fire,
and was barely saved from destruction, with the
loss of many things, especially Books & Papers.
The Bible in which this Letter was kept was
found on the next day still smouldering, with
more than half of its leaves burnt away, including
a part of the Family Record & this Letter : —

*• * Hadley, Massachusetts Colony,

Jan. ye Firste, 16^

" * My Dear & Dutiful Son : . . . I was of so
tender an Age at the death of my beloved Father
that I am possessed of but little of the Information
for which you seek. My Revered Father was an
ordained Minister of ye Gospelle, educate at Cam-
bridge in England & came to yis Land by reason
of ye Great Persecution by which ye infamous
Archibishop Laud and ye Black Tom Tyrante, (as
Mr. Russell was always wont to call ye Earl of
StrafForde,) did cause ye reign of his Majestic
Charles ye First to loose favour in ye sight of ye
people of England. My Father & Mother came
over in 16^, firste to Watertown which is neare
Boston, & after a yeare or two to Weathersfield on
ye great River, where he became ye firste settled
Pastor.

"•Concerning of ye earlie days I can remember

but litde save Hardship. My Parents had broughte
bothe Men Servants & Maid Servants from Eng-
land, but ye Maids tarried not but till they got
Married, ye wch was shortly, for there was great
scarcity of Women in ye Colonies. Ye men did
abide better. Onne of em had married onne of
my Mother's Maids & they did come with us to
Weathersfield to our grate Comforte for some
Yeares, untill they had manny littel onnes of theire
Owne. I do well remember ye Face & Figure of
my Honoured Father. He was 5 foote, 10 inches
talle, & spare of builde, tho not leane. He was
as Active as ye Red Skin Men & sinewy. His
delighte was in sportes of strengthe & withe his
owne Hands he did helpe to rear bothe our owne
House & ye Firste Meetinge House of Weathers-
field, wherein he preacht yeares too fewe. He was
well Featured & Fresh favoured with faire Skin
& longe curling Hair (as neare all of us have
had) with a merrie eye & swete smilinge Mouthe,
tho he coulde frowne sternlie eno' when need
was.

***Ye firste -Meetinge House was solid mayde
to withstande ye wicked onsaults of ye Red Skins.
Its Foundations was laide in ye feare of ye Lord,
but its Walk was truly laide in ye feare of ye
Indians, for many & grate was ye Terrors of em.
I do mind me y't alle ye able-bodyed Men did
work thereat, & ye olde & feeble did watch in
turns to espie if any Salvages was in hidinge neare

& every Man keept his Musket nigfae to his
hande. I do not myself remember any of ye
Attacks mayde by large bodeys of Indians whilst
we did remayne in Weathersfield, but did ofttimes
hear of em. Several Families wch did live back
a ways from ye River was either Murderdt or
Captivated in my Boyhood & we all did live in
constant feare of ye like. My Father ever de-
clardt there would not be so much to feare iff ye
Red Skins was treated with suche mixture of Jus-
tice & Authority as they eld understand, but iff he
was living now he must see that wee can do
naught hut^ght em & that right heavily.

*** After ye Red Skins ye grate Terror of our
lives at Weathersfield & for many yeares after wc
had moved to Hadley to live, was ye Wolves.
Catamounts was bad eno' & so was ye Beares, but
it was ye Wolves yt was ye worst. The noyes of
theyre bowlings was eno' to curdle ye bloode of
ye stoutest & I have never seen ye Man yt did
not shiver at ye Sounde of a Packe of em. What
wth ye way we hated em & ye goode money yt
was offered for theyre Heads we do not heare cm
now so much, but when I do I feel again ye
younge hatred rising in my Bloode, & it is not a
Sin because God mayde em to be hated. My
Mother & Sister did each of em kill more yanone
of ye gray Howlers & once my oldest Sister shot
a Beare yt came too neare ye House. He was a
goode Fatte onne & keept us all in meate for a

good while. I guess one of her Daughters has
got ye skinne.

"•As most of ye Weathersfield Settlers did
come afoot throu ye Wilderness & brought with
cm such Things only as they did most neede at ye
firste, ye other Things was sent round from Boston
in Vessels to come up ye River to us. Some of
ye Shippes did come safe to Weathersfield, but
many was lost in a grate storm. Amongst em
was onne wch held alle our Beste Things. A
good many Yeares later, long after my Father had
died of ye grate Fever & my Mother had married
Mr. Russell & moved to Hadley, it was found yt
some of our Things had been saved & keept in
ye Fort wch is by ye River's Mouthe, & they was
brought to us. Most of em was spoilt with Sea
Water & Mould, especially ye Bookes [Foot-note
by Juliana: "My Father hath one of these
books — The vision of Piers Plowman. It is so
ruinated with damp and mould yt no one can read
ye whole of it."] & ye Plate. Of this there was
no grate store, only ye Tankard, wch I have, and
some Spoones, divided amongst my Sisters wch
was alle so black it was long before any cou-ld
come to its owne colour agen, & Mr. Russell did
opine yt had it not been so it might not have
founde us agen, but he was sometimes a littel
shorte of ye Charity wch thinketh no Evil, at ye
least I was wont to think so when his Hand was
too heavy on my Shoulders & I remembered ye

sweetnesse & ye Charity of my firste Father, but
on ye whole said he was a Goode Man & did well
by my Mother & her children, & no doubt we
did often try his wit & temper, but it was in his
house yt ' —

" Here," writes the copyist, ** there is a break "
— probably where the sheets of the original had
been burned.

The silver tankard mentioned in the foregoing
letter of Samuel Smith of Hadley is in all proba-
bility the one now belonging to my brother, Gil-
bert Livingston Smith of Sharon, Connecticut,
though the earliest positive record which we have
concerning it is in a bill of sale, including various
things to the amount of nearly ;^700, made to the
Rev. Cotton Mather Smith by his brother, Simeon
Smith, M.D., when the latter was leaving Sharon
to take up his residence in Vermont in 1787. It
is there described as "One ancient Silver Tan-
kard marked with our coat of arms & S. S., bought
by me from Brother Dan." The tankard now has
on the side opposite the handle a spout, which
was put on about 1820 that it might be used as a
water-pitcher. Family tradition has always held
that this tankard was brought from England in
1636 by the Rev. Henry Smith, and referred to in
the letter just quoted.

Poor and incomplete are these glimpses of a
New England pastorate, but they bring before us

some of the privations suffered, and the courage
vbich so bravely met them because it was
grounded on an unbounded faith in an omnipotent
Father, and was cheered by family affection. Of
both of these the last will and testament of the Rev.
Henry Smith gives beautiful testimony. It is not
cAtiched in legal phraseology, but was apparently
written by himself^ and hence is more than usually
expressive of the testator's character. He had not
waited until the shadow of death had fallen upon
him before making his slender worldly prepara-
tions for *• departing hence to be no more," but,
" Being in health of body and soundness of mind,"
and ** wishing to leave no occasion of trouble for
my children," the will was made several months
before his decease. There was not much to be
disposed of, only a trifle over ;^370, but that little
is so graciously bestowed that one feels as fully
persuaded of the testator's own loving heart as he
was persuaded of God's " unchangeable love and
good will both in life and death . . . according
to His covenant, viz : — I am thy God and of thy
Seede after thee."

After this profession of faith, which evidently
comes from a simple and earnest heart, the will
proceeds :

" Then for my ovtward estate, wch, because it
is but littel, & I haue well proued the difficvlties
of this covntry, how hard a thing it will bee for a

to maiigg dit ifiiis of so great a fiunily
£ die Fjdbcr Of Mcxcyes bttfa blessed mce widiallp
Jr lune a!bo e a perienoe ot die pnrdence & £udi*
frhicss Of HIT deare Wdc; wbo shall, in pardng
vidie mec; pore allso widie a great pait of her liue-
iibooii: I do dioc sbi e bc ^ w cad i & giue to her, the
nrii power Jc dtymil of aDe that estate wch God
hidi gseucn oiee. in hovseSk lands» cattdls Sc goods
whitsoeuer« vidiin doies and witfaovt; only pro-
uiding that in case sfaee manj again, or otherwise
shee bee able comlbftablT to ^lare it from her own
necessamr maintenance, that diee giue vnto my
Sonne Samvell that pait of my hoYse lott that was
intended tor mx Sonne Peregrine lyinge next to
the bvT}-ing place, & the land I haue bejon the
great Riuer eastward ; & allso, to him & my see*
ond Sonne, Noah« fiue acres apeece of meadow
with vplands proportionable therevnto, & to the
reste oi my children vnmarried, 20 pounds apeece,
at the age of one & twcntj- yeares, or at the time
of her death, wch shall come the sooner. & for
my two Davghtcrs that bee married, my desire is
that they haue 20 Shillings apeece and euery onne
of their children fiue Shillings apeece, either in
bookes or such other things as my Wife shall best
please to part withall."

Of the jCsjo nearly one half was in houses and
lands, j^^o were in live stock, which did not
include any domestic fowls, the latter being still

scarce in the colonies. Bees, number of hives not
stated, were valued at ^8, which seemingly dis-
proportionately large valuation was probably due
to the scarcity of the cultivated variety. Probably
Mr. Smith was, as all the New England pastors of
his time were obliged to be, a farmer as well as a
preacher, but he could not have been enthusiasti-
cally devoted to agriculture, for his "husbandry
tools" were only valued at ^3 los., while his
"armes & ammunition" were reckoned at £^

" Bookes " are mentioned, but their value not
estimated, probably because at the time of his
death, during a prevailing " grate fever," proper
appraisers may not have been on hand. Min-
isters were usually appointed to appraise books.
Out of thirty-seven inventories which were re-
corded during the first ten years of the Connecticut
Colony, in only nine, including that of Mr. Smith,
do we find mention of books. The total value of
these in six of the nine is estimated at ^"39 13/.
Mr. Hooker's books were estimated at ^300, a
considerable item in an estate amounting to only
about /^1I36. I say "only" when viewing this
subject from present conditions ; under those
of 1648 in the colonies, Mr. Hooker was a
wealthy man. His friend and parishioner, Mr.
William Whiting, the plutocrat of the Connecti-
cut Colony, left an estate of ^2854, including
debts due to him which are classed as " doubtful,"
and "adventures wch are harserdous" to the

amount of ;^429. His *^ books & apparell ** united
are appraised at £2^.

What would seem to be a disproportionately
costly item in Mr. Smith*s house furnishings was
that of beds. Bedsteads are not named, perhaps
because there were none, for there were compara-
tively few in the country, save the sleeping-bunks
built in with the houses, until fifteen or twenty
years later than this. "Three feather beds with
all things belonging to them " are valued at ;^40,
which would seem to show that the ** all things "
were of extra quality, or that the other usual fur-
nishings of the bedrooms, and perhaps also that
of the parlor or living-room, as well as the beds
themselves, were included in that valuation.

Probably it was for the accommodation of fire
that the parlor was usually the guest bedroom,
and we find that the entire parlor furniture of the
wealthy Mr. Whiting, including " bed-stead, bed,
stools, a clock [perhaps the only one in the colony],
a safe [probably an iron or steel chest like those
preserved in some European museums], a cradle,
cob irons,** etc., is altogether valued at only

Mr. Smith's tables, chairs, stools, cushions, and
"other things belonging" are altogether valued
at ;^3 15J., while "cob irons, trammels & other
fire irons" were valued at £2 8i., and "brasse,
iron potts, pewter & such like " were ap-
praised at jCi^' The two classes of goods last

" * •«* .

,^- - .^ ../»v^*'vv»' »»^'»*'*»».-t'**'-* > > »./--•■

■«S^9te«-

CHAPTER IV

A PIONEER HOME IN CONNECTICUT

CHAPTER IV.

A PIONEER HOME IN
CONNECTICUT.

The Coming of Mrs. Mar-
garet Lake and the
Family of Captain John
Gallup.

Voyage of the Abigail.

The First Homesteads of
the Second Generation.

Household Labor.

A Bride's Furnishings.

Abigail do we again hear of Mrs. Lake. This
time it is as the first white woman to set foot in
what is now New London County, where — and a
very unusual thing it was at that time — she is
named as one of the original grantees, sharing in
all the grants and divisions of land. Mrs. Lake
probably never took up her residence in New
London, appearing to have shared the home of
her sister, Mrs. Winthrop, until the latter's hus-
band became the governor of Connecticut Colony,
after which period Mrs. Lake continued to reside
in Ipswich, perhaps in the house which had be-
longed to the Winthrops. It was on the portion
of land which had been assigned to Mrs. Lake in
New London County that her daughter Hannah,
when, in 1643, she had become the wife of the
second Captain John Gallup, lived for the first few
years of her wedded life.

Although the conditions of life were necessarily
of the hardest all through the early days in all the
colonies, and there is no doubt that they were
hardest of all in sterile New England, it must not
be imagined that there were no degrees in the
styles of living. In spite of the leveling effect of
common sentiments, circumstances, privations, and
dangers, and of the fact that men of gentle birth
and cultivated minds were forced by the first law
of nature to become measurably skilled in all
sorts of handicraft, class distinctions were for sev-
eral generations as rigorously maintained in the

New England as in the Old. It was said by
Daniel Neal, writing in 1720: "In their Dress,
Tables and Conversation, they [the colonists]
affect to be as English as possible. . . . The only
difference between an Old and a New English
Man is in his Religion." Hence it is plain that,
at least after the first two or three years in any
given settlement, to describe the home of a fomily
belonging to one social class is by no means to
describe that of a family belonging to another
class at the same, much less at another, period.

The wills of the respective ancestors of John
and of Hannah Lake Gallup prove them to have
been men of considerable substance and local im-
portance in old England. In the New World
their femily alliances were equally respectable, so
it may be supposed that their dwelling and home
belongings were fairly representative of those of
the best of the pioneer families of their time.

But before the nest-building must have come
the mating, with all its preliminaries, as sweet
here in the wilderness as if the actors in the little
love-drama had been walking beneath the haw-
thorn hedges on one of their ancestral manors
across the sea. Between the dust-dry lines of the
dim old records we imagine that we catch a
glimpse of what may have been a very charming
and beautiful romance; for John Gallup and
Hannah Lake, as boy and girl, probably about
fourteen and twelve years of age, were fellow-pas-

sengers on the ship Abigail during the long cross-
ing of the stormy Atlantic. When, as in this
case, more than two hundred passengers were
packed closely together for ten or more tedious
and sometimes fearful weeks, there is no doubt
that the foundations were laid for many long-
enduring friendships, and sometimes, alas! for
equally durable dislikes ; and if these, why may
not love also have been bom in these confined
and tempestuous quarters ? At least, it is a pleas-
ant thought, with some warrant of tradition and
probability, that the manly boy, tall, handsome,
and bold as he must have been, if in this case the
boy was the fether of the man, and the bright-
£iced girl who became a brave, high-spirited, and
loving matron, may have begun their mutual life-
long trust and love upon this wave-tossed little
vessel, smaller than many a fishing-schooner of
to-day. There must certainly have been many
opportunities to make their respective faults and
virtues known to each other.

The conditions of such a voyage are vividly
painted in the elder Governor Winthrop's journal
of his own voyage five years preceding that of the
Abigail. He makes no complaints, but it is easy
to see that the noble spirit of the adventurer for
conscience' sake had much to triumph over. On
the four vessels of which the bark which bore him
was one, he records that there were three deaths
and three births during the voyage. Surely those

were brave women who accompanied their hus-
bands, venturing so much at such a time ! One
advantage that the elder Winthrop's company had,
and which probably they of the younger did not
have, has a picnicky sound that is droil enou^ to
modem cars.

When "off the banks of New Foundland the
Arabdia stopped to fish," and "all the passengers
who were so minded " seem to have enjoyed the
sport of replenishing their scanty larder. A little
later we find that they were picking strawberries
on Cape Ann.

The jibigaiPs weary voyage was not ended until
in November, much too late for any such diver-
sions. It is at least to be hoped that her passen-
gers did not, like those of a ship which immediately
followed the Arabella, "arrive nearly starved,"
but it is certain that they had on board a most
unwelcome companion in the smallpox. At that
time even inoculation had not become known, and
we can now but faintly imagine the well-justified
terrors of those exposed to the disease.

Though the young couple were not married
until eight years after thei*" arrival in this country,
it is probable that their earliest dwelling was built
of logs, as were most of the houses of this date and
vicinity. If so, it was soon superseded by the
permanent homestead, which was not taken down
until the latter part of the eighteenth century. I
have talked about this house with a man who had

heard it described by his mother, the daughter of a
farm-laborer who had lived in it until her marriage
at the age of eighteen years. Soon after that time
it ceased to be used as a dwelling, and before this
it had long been occupied only as a tenement-
house for farm-laborers, a finer residence having
been erected for their own homestead by the de-
scendants of the builders of the first. The second
permanent home of the Gallups was fine for its
days and must have been intended to fill, in a
degree, the place of one of the old manor-houses,
of which the builders of the first had probably
transmitted vivid memor)^-pictures ; but the dwell-
ing which immediately succeeded the log house
was erected with a view to meeting the needs of
the new countr)'.

That so few of the houses of the early settlers
were built of the excellent stone which is over-
abundant in New England was not due to the
groundless prejudice against that material which
arose among their great-grandchildren, but to the
fact that haste — such haste as was possible in
those slow days — was of the utmost consequence.
No man wished to spend the best years of his life
in a cabin of logs and clay while waiting for a
stone house to grow, as ordinarily it must under
the tedious methods of the period, layer by layer,
the lower tiers almost having time to gather moss
before the roof-beams could be raised.

The larger part of the best of the early houses

of New England were probably much like this
first permanent homestead of the Gallups. Both
the external walls and those of the partitions were
of heavy timbers, roughly squared by the ax,
chinked with moss, and lined with hewn planks
two inches in thickness. In later days coats of
plaster were put on over the planks, but during
the first years the walls were made warm as well as
picturesque by hangings of bear, deer, otter, wild-
cat, and fox skins, whenever these could be spared
from more pressing uses. The exterior walls were
about two feet in thickness, which tells of the size
of the forest trees which had been cut down to
make them. The high-placed and deep-seated
windows were scant in number, heavily barred and
narrow. (The Pequots and Narragansetts were
near, numerous, and crafty.) It is doubtful if the
first of the windows were glazed. Even in old
England it was only the wealthy who at this time
could afford the luxury of glass. Oiled paper was
the usual substitute. To exclude the cold were
heavy and close wooden shutters both outside and
inside. During the coldest weather it must have
been necessary to depend for light, even in the
daytime, upon open fires, pine-knots, and candles,
for at least the first decade or two in each new
settlement.

In the center of the house rose the great stone
chimney, with wide-throated fireplaces opening
into three large rooms on the first story, and into

zsd pahidcss ceT^ngs w^crr lam. hat higlhcr dun
was csGxL ior Jocin Gaih:p ts said to haTc stood
six twt Rx:r rxrhcs in his grar knit hose; and had
to bow his starclr head to cnscr anr doorwaT saTc
his own. TbfC sccood sconr on die two longer
sides projected ooasidenbiT beyond the lower. In
view Of the constant danger ttom Indians^ it is
probable that this house was intended to be used
as a fortress in case of necessity, and tfab prcgection
may have been made for the sake of aflfording a
coign of vantage to its inmates if attacked by
savages, although, as this method of construcdon
was a common one in nearly all parts of Eurc^
at the time, this is not a necessary supposition.
The third story was but a big garret with windows
in each end. Beneath all were deep cellars for the
storage of winter supplies, and for the manu£icture
and ripening a( home-brewed beer, made after
recipes brought from the mother-country. At
first cider had no place in those cellars, but after
the orchards had grown, there was found room for
the barrels of hard cider which were made from
them, and which finally quite displaced the hea-
vier and perhaps more wholesome, certainly less
stimulating, beer. In the cellars were also
kept, even from the first, the casks of metheg-
lin, made from the plentiful honey of the wild bee,
which in the autumn filled the place with the
sound of its working like the swarming of armies

il:^ L_— i; — — ■ VI.

of bees — a sound which was said to be reproduced
in the befuddled heads of those who were not
extremely moderate in their draughts of this too
potent liquor.

In the broad and high-peaked garret were set
the heavy looms at which, during all the long
summer days, either men or women, as the case
might be, were diligently weaving the coarse stuff
which must serve young and old, master and man,
mistress and maid, for all the rougher occasions of
pioneer life.

Very different are the social standards of differ-
ing times. In early New England, and in all the
colonies, for that matter, it was only a specially
wealthy family which could afford to own a loom,
at least until they could be made here. Weaving
was heavy work, and was mostly done by weavers
who went from house to house, or by the poorer
neighbors, who were paid in cloth or in other needed
supplies. It seems certain that, during the first
two or three decades at least, much of the spin-
ning must have been done with the distaff", for
comparatively few wheels are mentioned in the
inventories of those years. Whether with distaff"
or wheel, spinning was winter's lighter task, and
performed by both mistress and maids; but, as
with the weaving, it was only the well-to-do who
had the materials. It was many years before suffi-
cient wool or flax could be grown in this country
to make them plentiful.

Long before cloth-weaving factories were estab-
lished here, yet not until the early part of the
eighteenth century, a few fulling-mills were set
up ; at these the woolen cloths were dyed, fulled,
sheared, and pressed, A web of cloth which had
passed through the fuller's processes was an object
of envy to those — and they were in the majority
— who could not afford to pay for his services.

The making of the plainest linens was probably
all done at home, either with or without the aid of
the itinerant weaver, whose services were some-
times bespoken months in advance, so greatly was
he in demand. Even after his labors were done
the fabric was not ready for use. In my dear
mother's girlhood flax-spinning was still consid-
ered as an essential accomplishment for young
ladies, at least among the descendants of the
Huguenots. I have heard her say that to bring
the fine linen for shirts to the required degree of
snowiness no less than thirty and sometimes even
forty bleachings were necessary. The first few
bleachings were of the thread. The colonists were
never sparing of their labor, yet it is probable that
they were not so dainty as to the shade of white-
ness in the overfilled days of the seventeenth cen-
tury. With their best diligence, the time required
from the sowing of the flax to the end of the last
bleaching could never be less than sixteen months.

Farm-laborers had come over in numbers, and
there was a fair proportion of mechanics, but of

maid-servants there was oftentimes a great lack.
Though many a femily, among the richer colo-
nists, had brought several, the maid-servants were
always fewer in number than the men-servants,
and when they married, as most of them did very
soon, there was no way of supplying their places.
At the date when this old house was new there
were few negroes in New England, and the half-
tamed squaws who were sometimes employed
made very poor substitutes for trained house-
workers. As the Winthrops were sometimes most
unhappily forced to make use of this very unsat-
isfactory form of household service, it is probable
that Mrs. Lake and her daughters were also com-
pelled to accept of it in defeult of better.

Scanty enough, according to our standard, were
then the plenishings of the wealthy houses of old
England, and really pathetic was the scarcity here
of what were even then esteemed to be essential
comforts in the older land.

Not until well into the second half of the sev-
enteenth century was furniture of any but the
roughest sorts made in New England, and it is
obviously impossible that much should have been
imported in the tiny vessels then dignified by the
name of ships. Their space was too important to
be filled with furniture, their petty holds being
always crowded with the literally indispensable
articles, such as provisions, arms, ammunition,
tools, seeds, and clothes, while their scanty deck-

space was made still scantier by the presence of
the live stock of which the agonists were in such
pressing need.

In 1645 Mrs. Lake sent to a correspondent in
England a list of things which she desired for the
furnishing of the new house of her daughter^ Mrs.
Gallup. She asked for:

•• A peare of brasse

A brasse Kittell,

2 grate Chestes well made,

2 armed Cheares with fine rushe bottums,

A carven Caisse for Bottels wch my Cuzzen

Cooke has of mine»
A Warmeing Pann,
A big iron Pott,
6 Pewter Plates,

2 Pewter Platters,

3 Pewter Porringeres,

A small stew Pann of Copper,

A peare of Brasse and a peare of Silver Candle-
sticks (of goode Plate.)

A Drippe Panne,

A Bedsteede of carven Oake, (ye one in wch I
sleept in my Father's house, wth ye Val-
lances and Curtayns and Tapestry Cover-
lid belongynge, & ye wch my Sister Bread-
cale [?] hath in charge for Mee.)

3 Duzzen Nappekins of fine linen damasque &
2 Tabel cloathes of ye same. Alsoe 8

fine Holland Pillowe Beeres & 4 ditto

Sheetes,
A skellet,

A pestel & Mortar,
A few Needels of differnt sizes,
A Carpet [that is, a table-cover ; the name was

then universally thus applied], of goodley

stuffe and colour, aboute 2 £11 longe.
6 Tabel Knifes of ye beste Steal wth such han-

dels as may bee.
Alsoe, 3 large & 3 smal Silvern Spoones, & 6

of home."

And this is all. Yet for the time and place it
must have been considered a fine outfit, perhaps
too much so for the wife of the frontier farmer,
skipper, and fighter. At the same period in old
England, in the wills of wealthy titled families,
bedding, utensils of copper, and dishes of pewter
were constantly named as articles of considerable
value. The elder Governor Winthrop was known
as one of the wealthiest of the early colonists, yet
the inventory of his possessions, made in 1649,
does not present a proportionately finer showing.
Even a century later than this date a complete
outfit of pewter plates, dishes, and spoons made a
lordly wedding present, given by a grandson of
Major-General Humphrey Atherton to his daugh-
ter — a gift: which, according to traditions, excited
some heartburnings among relatives who had not

been so favored. In the absence of pewter,
wooden bowls, trenchers, and noggins were consid-
ered rather fine, while the carefully dried gourds
and the deep, saucer-like shells of the immense
quahogs, which were then so abundant, but have
now left only degenerate descendants along the
New England coasts, served an ever-useful pur-
pose when the supply of better things was short.
It is said that small clam-shells, set in split sticks
for handles, were used as teaspoons until the early
part of this century. The large and thin shells of a
kind of scallop, which is still plentiful along the
shores of Maine and Massachusetts, are sometimes
used even now as skimmers — a curious survival
of an old custom so long after the need for it has
passed by I

Many years after the old Gallup house had been
torn down, the dining-table which had served the
femily for at least one generation was preserved in
an out-house, where my informant had seen it in
his youth. It was simply what once had been
the cover of a large packing-box, of smooth oak
boards, supported by carefully squared legs. The
box might have been used to bring the bedding
and other things from Europe, for on the under
side of the table's top still remained the inscription :
" For Mrs. Margarette Lake, Ippsitch."

Chairs, when found at all in the houses of the
earliest colonists, were reserved for the heads of
families and their most honored guests, or for the

infirm. When one remembers what uncomforta-
ble things the most of those chairs were, one must
profoundly pity the infirm I One may be per-
mitted to hope that the comfortable " barrel chair,"
still sometimes found in the country houses, was
the happy invention of this time, by some bene-
hctoT of the ill and aged. Coopers were plentier
than cabinet-makers in those days, and the barrel
chair has an extremely primitive look. Even in
England, until after the Restoration, backless
benches and stools formed the usual seats, and we
must suppose that they did so for many years
later than that.

Closets or pantries were not often built in the
houses which first succeeded the log cabins of the
settlers, chests which might also be utilized as
seats, and a small room with shelves not always
ovemicely smoothed, answering for the safe-keep-
ing of most articles not in daily use. A cupboard
was a possession indicating a good degree of pros-
perity, while a "court cup-board," or a sideboard,
was a mark of positive affluence, even at a much
later date than this.

Scanty as was the wedding house-plenishing of
Hannah Gallup, she was reasonably well provided
with fine clothes. Indeed, all of the better class
among the colonists seem to have had dispropor-
tionately liberal supplies of " mantels " and " petty-
cotes " of velvet or brocade, with other " garments
to consort therewith": but this was not due so

much to vanity as to thrift, the best being liter-
ally the cheapest in the days when the finer
fabrics were so honestly made as to wear for
decades, and the cost of carriage was the same
for a coat of frieze as for one of velvet.

Of silverware there was some, but not frequent,
mention in wills and inventories, and to jewelry
still less reference is made, unless mourning-rings
may be thus classed. Mrs. Lake bequeathed to
one of her daughters an " enamailed " and to the
other a " gould " ring. An item of curious interest
in this will is the following:

** To my Daughter, Martha Harris, I give my
tapestry coverlid and all my other apparell, which
are not disposed of to others pticulerly, and I give
unto her my mantel, and after her decease to all
her children as their need is*' (The italics are
mine.)

Tradition runs that this " mantel " was of Russian
sable, even then as costly as it was rare, and that it
had been brought from the for East, perhaps China.
Such a bequest brings many things to mind : long,
tedious sledgings, when stalwart men took the
place of horses or oxen and drew their wives or
sisters through the windings of wintry forests,
where the only track was an Indian trail, and
where every step was shadowed by the ever-pres-
ent dread of the approach of the stealthy foe. Or
we see visions of night campings, made fearful by

the bowlings of the wolves; and, day or night,
always the same benumbing cold. Often must
the grandmother's fur "mantel" (worn, we may
be sure, until the last hair was gone) have proved
a veritable life-preserver in those bitter years.

In addition to the above-mentioned "mantel,"
Mrs. Lake seems to have left a wardrobe of con*
siderabte extent and richness, besides a goodly list
of linens and other household treasures, with sev-
eral carved chests to contain them; but no books
arc mentioned, save a " grate Byble " and " another
Bible."

Of such homely comforts as could be made
ftom the materials at hand the industrious and
ingenious colonist might possess a rude abun-
dance. Le Grand Monarque of the most luxurious
country then existing might have a fine silken
instead of a coarse linen slip for his bed, but it
would be filled with feathers no better than those
plucked from the wild water-fowl of the New
England coast; while heavily lined curtains of
coarse homespun wool or linen shut out the bitter
winds as effectually as the bravest damask from
the looms of Flanders. The absence of many
things which we now deem to be essential was
not felt as a privation, because the things were
unknown, not only in this wilderness, but in the
old country.

Some one writing of the Lady Arbella John-
son has said that "she came from a paradise of

plenty and pleasure into a wfldcrncss of wants."
Thb expression is especially correct as regards its
last cbuse. ^A wilderness of wants'* this cer-
tainly must have seemed, not only to the sister of
the Earl of LiiKx>ln, but also to the hardiest of the
colonists ; and these wants were actual, not imagi-
nary, as evidenced by die frightful death-rates of
the early years. But even die tapestried halls the
delicate Lady Arbella had left would seem com-
fortless enough to the daughter of any small farmer
of modem New England, however much she
might admire its splendor, could she now sud-
denly find herself placed in the Lady Arbella's fine
abode of ^ pleasure and plenty " as the latter had
left it in 163a

Floor-coverings were then a rarity even in
palaces, and the sand and rushes which polished
the boards or silenced the tread were as plentiful
here as elsewhere. Porcelain was a luxury in any
land ; even delft was uncommon ; and pewter was
considered too fine for the daily use of any save
the rich. Wooden dishes served on ordinary
occasions in old England as in the New, save
among the wealthiest. The sense of real priva-
tion was felt in things much closer to the needs of
the primitive man.

Great, very great, must have been the suffering
from the cold and ftom the lack of suitable food.
If the colonists sometimes took undue quantities
of beer and the stronger liquors, not only the tra-

ditions of the older land but the hard conditions
of the new must be remembered in extenuation.
They needed something besides cold water. Hot
water had not been dreamed of as a beverage, and
the milder stimulants of our day had not been
introduced. The earliest mention of chocolate in
Connecticut is said to have been in 1679, Five
years later coffee is first named, and tea not until 1695.
For many years raised bread was hardly known,
and this for several very good reasons. It was a
diflScult matter to preserve the leaven from one
baking until the next. Either it would sour from
too great heat, or it would lose its vitality from
the severe cold weather. To bake bread in an
iron pot over the fire or under the same utensil
inverted before the blaze, was an undertaking very
doubtful in its results ; yet there was no other way,
for the brick or stone ovens of a later date did not
exist during the first decade, and, except in a few
instances, probably not for a score of years longer.
Until a sufficiency of bread-stuffs could be raised
here, which was not for several years, both wheat
flour and oatmeal were imported in considerable
quantities ; but the first was costly even in Eng-
land, and as both often arrived here in an exceed-
ingly damaged condition, the roughly pounded or
ground meal of Indian corn was for months at a
time the staff of life — a staff which, for persons
of weak powers of digestion, has often proved an
insufficient support.

For grinding this the only mills were of the sim-
ple Indian construction — a large stone hollowed
by natural or by artificial means, and another stone
into which a wooden handle had been fitted. The
latter was sometimes tied to a young sapling grow-
ing near, which, by its rebound, saved the grinder
the labor of lifting the pestle. In my childhood
near the ruins of an ancient house stood a very
large birch-tree; beneath it was a hollow stone,
and still lingering amid the upper branches, which
had grown in such a way as to hold and support
it, could be seen one of these ancient pestles.

After the first few seasons summer vegetables
were as fine and as plentiful as in old England,
but it was impossible to preserve for winter use
any that could not survive deep burial in trenches
out of doors or in the cellars, overlaid with piles
of earth mixed with dead leaves, so bitter was
the winter frost and so inadequate the means of
excluding it.

Poultry was more easily brought than larger
live stock, and multiplied more rapidly, but it was
a good many years after the landing at Plymouth
before cows and sheep became plenty. Even as
late as 1672, when Mrs. Lake made her will, a
"cow and heifer" were evidently esteemed to be
bequests of more than ordinary value ; indeed, the
same was then true in old England, where a man
whose estate went by entail to his eldest son, and
who bequeathed ;^iooo each to four younger sons.

- — » '_ —

-ti::::

seems to have thought each of his daughters well
portioned with ;^2oo, a cow, a heifer, ten sheep,
and a feather-bed. Trumbull, in his history of
Connecticut, gives the value of a good milch cow,
at about 1640, as £^0. At the same date car-
penters and other mechanics were receiving from
fourteen to eighteen pence per day. The work of
a " paire of Oxen with tacklin " was held to be
worth two shillings and fivepence for " six bowers "
in winter and " eight bowers " the rest of the year,
these hours making the full day's work for cattle,
except in heavy upland plowing, when **six
howers *' was considered enough. A man's work-
ing hours were reckoned from sun to sun in sum-
mer, and from six to six o'clock in winter; but
cattle were much more precious than men. The
latter usually managed to survive the long and
arduous sea voyage, but of the cattle which formed
the deck-load of nearly all incoming ships in
summer, not more than twenty-five per cent were
expected to survive, even under exceptionally fa-
vorable conditions.

Some of the first of the colonists sent by nearly
every returning ship for seeds and young fruit-
trees, but comparatively few of the latter survived
the long voyage, and of course those that did so
required some years to come to maturity. This
led to the making large use of the delicious wild
berries in their seasons, but the best of these, as
the raspberries and the strawberries, — which have

jui-i^^comnr^ by dcscribiog indi-

•jes ii TWO nyffcrs ex itagOK' — do not
T zo xz^ &3td^ ictuamg tt> icciin their

TOT TTTi^j^r 5^31^ ^ rii -ii r^r . aod ao odicr method
oc prcsenrxDoc v:is racL pnctkable.

Of scdi n-;^its js did eainre the pwjL g s& great
quanritfes vere girbcrcd azii dricd» a labor which
rjoc 2, litrie :o die roils ot the wotaai of die
durir^ the sommer. Uodcr these condi-
tiooi. it 15 not voodtnul that die asdtuL loqg-siiflkr-
ing pumpkin came ixco soch muTexsal £iYor.
Prcsening miits br the oqIt e flc c tua l mediod
then known, except dnring;. — die boiling with the
solid pouxki Of truit tor pound ot sugar, — was un-
wholesome, very costly, and but litde attempted.
Game and dsh were abundant and delicious. Salt
meats were a staple import, and swine soon became
plenty ; but homed cartie, sheep, and even domestic
fowls were tor a long time too valuable to be eaten.

For years there seems to have been litde attempt
at butter-making; most of that which was used
here was imported from England, and often did
not keep well, in spite of being frequently made
unpalatable by the quantit)' of salt used to pre-
serve it. On the occasion of the wedding of her
daughter Hannah, Mrs. Lake writes that she had
*' made some very goode buttere although it
seemed almost Wicket to soe }'use ye milk yt b
so sore needet for ye sick & ye littell ownes."

Sheep were spared for their wool and poultry
for their eggs; when the chickens were sacrificed
their feathers were carefully preserved, for in
those days of scarcity a bed of hen feathers would
not be despised, though those of the wild geese
and ducks would certainly be more highly
prized.

In later times there was no lack of material to
keep the hands of matrons and maids busily spin-
ning, but at first there was neither flax nor wool to
spin. Woolen yarns were among the articles sent
for to England ; but threads from worn-out woolen
garments long supplied much of the material for
the stockings and mittens for working wear.

In these pioneer days the energies of the colo-
nists were devoted to getting together the raw
materials for a civilized existence. In 1640 the
"Generall Court" of Connecticut Colony issued
the following recommendation:

'* Whereas as yt is observed yt experience has
made appear that much ground within these lib-
ertyes may be well improved both in Hempe &
Flaxe & yt we myght in time have a supply of
lynnen cloath amongst o'selves and for the more
speedy procuring of Hempe Seede It is Ordered
)rt every family within these plantations shall
pfcure and plante this pr'sent yeare at lest onne
spoonfuU of English hempe seed in fruitful soyle
at lest a foot distant betwixt each seed, and the

same so planted shall be pr'served and kept in
husbandly manner for supply of seed another yeare."

The following year the same ordinance was
repeated ; after that it may be supposed that enough
seed had been secured for future planting.

At what an humble distance must we now admire
the indomitable and uncomplaining courage with
which these colonists bore their material as well as
their more than material privations. To one griev-
ous privation I have seen no reference made as such.
Perhaps it bore so heavily upon loving hearts that
they feared to give expression to their feelings, and
so lift the flood-gates of their suppressed sorrows.

There is preserved a letter written by Mrs. Lake
when she had been living in this country twenty-
eight years. Her beloved brother-in-law, Win-
throp, had gone to England in the interests of the
colonists, and Mrs. Lake thus writes to him :

" I would desire you to inquire whether my sis-
ter Breadcale bee livinge, you may hear of her if
livinge, at Iron Gate, where the boats weekly
come from Lee."

There is a world of silent and weary heartbreak
in this and similar inquiries in the same letter.

When Mrs. Lake had come to New England,
Charles I, Strafford, and Archbishop Laud were
carrying things with a high hand, driving the
Puritans out from the folds as if they had been

wolves. Between that time and the date of Mrs.
Lake's letter the commonwealth had risen, flour-
ished, and, when the mighty man who gave it
form had passed from earth, had fallen, and the
Restoration, which all good subjects were bound to
call "happy," had dropped a veil over things
which It could not, and others which it would not,
undo. Amid all their own troubles and overtum-
ings, it is scarcely to be wondered at that the
relatives left at " home " should sometimes have
forgotten to write to their kin beyond the sea, from
whose thoughts they were never long absent. The
river of death could hardly have sundered chiefest
friends more effectually than did the turbulent
Atlantic then, but the hungry heart would still
hope and cry out for certainty.

When John and Hannah Gallup happily
planned and stoutly built their forest homestead
on the banks of the little Mystic River, it well
may be that they " laid its foundations in the feare
of God and reared its walls in the terror of the
Indians," as Samuel Smith of Hadley, Massachu-
setts, expressed it when writing in his old age in
regard to the erection of the first meeting-house In
Wethersfield, Connecticut, of which his iather was
pastor; and Samuel could speak feelingly upon
the subject, having himself, in his young manhood
in Hadley, had frequent occasion to defend his own
house firom savage attacks. Reverence for God
was a part of the inheritance of the Puritan settlers.

oc tbe Ia£xK was a tctt natural con>
5eq:2icr:cc ci rieir atuarkxL Whoever may have
been ro bbmc in the fint "»tfanrp, dicre is no
docbc dur bv fitry years alter the landing at
Pymoudu the quesdon of proper treatment of the
Indians received but one au^m ei from the colonists :
- We must extirpate them or tficy will exterminate
xisJ' At our distance from aU such apprehensions
ir is easy to see the l^ults of die white men, and to
sympadiize widi the misused Indian he was dis-
placing ; but had we lived in that time and under
the same circumstances, it is doubtful if we would
have been more altruistic than were our sorely
harassed ancestors. The red man may have been
as unjustly as he was unwisely treated by the white :
but he was savage; he was untractable; he was
cruel ; he was treacherous. If his provocations
were great, his vengeance was terrible. His vicinity
was an unending menace to the home of every settler.
The celebrated "Great Swamp Fight" of 1675
was so called to distinguish it from the smaller
Swamp Fight, which occurred at almost the
other extremity of Connecticut in 1637. In the
later of these battles the power of the truly great
chieftain. King Philip, and of the native tribes of
New England was forever broken. Perhaps, yes,
even probably, this decisive fight might have been
rendered unnecessary had gentler counsels pre-
vailed thirty or forty years before, but by 1675 it
had become inevitable.

When the colonial forces assembled to attack
King Philip's fort the members of the opposing
parties were supposed to be about two to one in
&vor of the Indians, full half of whom were sup-
plied with muskets as well as with their native
weapons ; besides this, they fought behind defenses
which, as the assaulting party had no cannon,
must have seemed to be almost impregnable. The
Narragansetts were the most nearly civilized of all
the New England tribes. This fort was of their
construction and was well built, with a strong and
high palisade in the midst of a vast pine and cedar
swamp. As an additional protection, the palisade
was surroundetl by a defensive hedge of interlacing
felled trees, several feet in height and about a rod
in thickness. Both parties to the conflict felt that
they were fighting for their families, their homes,
even their very existence as nations in these wilds.

The second John Gallup had always maintained
pleasant personal relations with the Indians of
whatever tribe, possessing those qualities of justice,
firmness, and kindness which win confidence ; but
the moment was not one for considerations of this
sort to have weight with either side. The husband
of Hannah Lake was no longer a young man,
having been married for thirty-two years ; but the
hardy pioneer was always in his prime between
fifty and sixty, and age had bowed neither the
back nor the spirit of Captain Gallup. At the
head of his company of eighty men, he led an

assault upon the fort's only vulnerable point, which
was a reasonably well protected and gallantly de-
fended gateway, where he fell with twenty of his
men.

Whether his body was brought home to the
woman who had loved him so long and so truly, I
do not know, but probably it was not. The De-
cember weather was bitterly cold, the half-frozen
morass was extremely treacherous. The victorious
party had already marched twenty miles that day,
fought fiercely, sustained only by scant rations of
frozen food, and had the same distance to walk
back again, carrying more than one hundred and
fifty wounded men with them, so it is probable
that the bodies of the slain were hastily interred
on the spot where they fell.

Neither do I know how long the wife survived
her husband ; but I do know that the name of the
hero-sire who fell in defense of his wilderness home
was long held in reverent remembrance by his
descendants. In a journal letter kept by his great-
great-granddaughter, Juliana Smith of Sharon,
Connecticut, I find this entry :

" This evening my Mother has been telling me
about her great-grandfather. Captain John Gallup,
who was killed in King Philip's War. I thank
God to be descended from such a man. Truthfiil,
Kind and Brave ! "

CHAPTER V

TWO HOUSES IN OLD NEW AMSTERDAM

^QoP

Cocy^'

CHAPTER V.

TWO HOUSES IN OLD
NEW AMSTERDAM.

The Long Step from Con-
necticut to New York.

Comforts of the Dutch.

Mr. David Codwise Tells

of the Houses of his

Grandfather and of Nic-

laes Evertsen, Grandson

of Lieutenant-Admiral

Jan Evertsen.

^ '•^"g.O"^ 4 ^"QoO"^ Q

^i^O^M^T is a long step both in time, in
l^ y IJ^ distance, and in customs from the
10 pioneer home in New London,
w ^ Connecticut, started in 1644, to

^OJ^^D^ the homes of prosperous Dutch
citizens of New Amsterdam in 1698.

Material progress in all the colonies had been
enormous during the years that had intervened.
It has always been believed that the Dutch settlers
were at no time subjected to the hardships that had
been so grievous to the Pilgrims and their imme-
diate successors, but that may have been a mis-
taken notion. Early Dutch records not having been
so thoroughly searched, and letters, if any are in ex-
istence, being in a foreign tongue, we have been con-
tent to accept the conditions of later days as char-
acteristic of the earlier ones as well. This much
we know, that times were comparatively easy when
Niclaes Evertsen, a recent immigrant from Holland,
perhaps by the way of the West Indies, married
Margrietye Van Baal, a native of the trading-post
which her father had known as Fort Orange,
but which, eight years before her birth, had

been obliged to take the English name c^ Al-
bany.

Yes; times were not hard in the litdc city of
New York, notwithstanding that it had been cap>
tured by the English, who were by no means as
gentle and careful nurses of their colonies as the
Dutch had been. The marriage just referred to
occurred in 1698, at which time there was a con-
siderable degree of material prosperity.

The Hollanders were natural traders, industri-
ous, thrifty, honest, and persevering. Probably no
nation had fewer vices or more virtues, and the
last were of the kind that bring prosperity in their
train. The English government paid them com-
paratively little attention, and the shrewd Dutch
colonists took no pains to awaken the interest (or
cupidity) of their new and undesired masters. In
preserving a salutary obscurity they were undoubt-
edly aided by their quiet ways and their language,
which few Englishmen cared to leam.

New York was now the little city's name upon
colonial maps; but New Amsterdam it still re-
mained in the hearts of its citizens, as well as in its
customs and its people for many years to come.
The British had been in possession for about thirty-
five years when Niclaes Evertsen built his broad-
roofed stone and shingle house somewhere upon
the big farm which is said to have stretched from
what is now Fourth Avenue, between Union and
Madison squares, to the East River; but Dutch

)

was still the language of the people, in Dutch were
their records kept, and Dutch were all their tastes
and ways.

The very first comers among the Dutch settlers
must, like the New England and all other pioneers,
have lived in huts of rough, or at best of squared,
logs; but instead of being treated with biting
neglect like the colonies of England, the Dutch
received every possible aid and comfort from the
government of their mother-land, and stores and
Supplies of all sorts were sent out to them as rap-
idly as possible and with a liberal hand, so that
they were supplied with the comforts of those days
sooner than their neighbors.

Even had the English so desired, they could not
have given to their colonies as many comforts as
could the Dutch, for the latter were for in advance
of the former in all the peaceful and domestic arts.
In addition to the help which they received from
the home-land, the Dutch were fortunate in being
most advantageously placed for acting as '* middle-
men " between Holland and the native American
tribes, and thus they rapidly accumulated property ;
hence their dwellings speedily became seats of
comfort, or even of luxury, as those terms were
then used.

The late David Codwise, for many years a mas-
ter in chancery in the city of New York, dying in
1864 at the age of eighty-four years, was the hus-
band of a sister of my grandmother. Under their

—c^ iL-sr-zaric ■•ax inaiT iznr prZiDod^s happy
::;-= -wirr -j^sx. am 3ix ^it Jos '^ry ^ were die
^xr^ 7u±i?c-z n isgminr tj sy jot great-ancle's
IKS.— rc'.TTS .-r 3K "WTm jcii ^c=|s in okl New
Y.'PS. '*: zi^i nuiTT T"'^' I rask saax notes, and
I 1^ Tt:'» ^j_T-jr--T iCTTT rac I did not take
—.-■.-:, 7ii.x^ I iu.'-; 'rwsr cwt j» g'^can siq>ple-
r?r::;i-7 .-ri.-rzuT'rn f-.T^ 'iK =x=t kttos, wills,
srsi fT-yr-!~e^A"-i:i-n -^zv ir =:t poGSCsaon and

I j.- Tcc rv*- -r;=F;-.=J>K- aii e ^zie ae drst of the
r**.- bLO*:f T-:Li.~i M-. C^-owise tiescribcd w me in
.-jcs..3;rx'S«r Jirii— i-ii ":ti.-c^i » his maamal
or r^s— -il r^?'-^T-'r^'f~'^ ; [ think, to the latter.
I3 iir:. sr: :z sziil, -ri -^e= iz "ix jellow brick
Will.- .-*;- :?* r-r^,-.ri, i-V-r. wi5 .viv 170a This
hc,:j<r. --.T -•>.-> iiii. Ti5 ;r.e i-plicate ot one
whi.-r. wii. sT^-rri i: o: iS.--'-: rhe same time by
his a:N.-<>:o7> rj.-r~.;r ir.i :=*.t: inrimate triend,
Ciptiir. N:cU;? E»i-v«;r_ The lirrer was die
punison 01' :he Iie-^:<:r-Lr.:-Aax.iral Jan (or
Jv^har.^ E\«r:Ti<r.. a k-:^.: 01" :he Order of St.
Miciucl. ir.J one or' the rr-o;: timous officers of
old Ho'.;.ir.J'5 ri:::ou5 r.ivy. to whose han'est of
heroes hi> ramilv h^J. in the course ot less than
d century, suppUeJ. besides hi:iiseh, no less than
three vtcc-ad:iiir.ils. v>ne commodore, and five
si'itVjyKi\:'rir:i-'S (^ship-comnianJers). At least
seven of the nine died in battle. Jacob de Liefde,
in his book 0:1 the "Great Dutch Admirals," says

that fifteen of the Evertsens had home the name
honorably in battle both on land and on sea, and
one must wonder that the immigrant Niclaes was
content to remain a merchant and captain of one
of his own ships, peacefully trading between New
Amsterdam and the West Indies. But times had
changed. Holland and England had become friends,
and the claws of Spain and Portugal had been too
closely clipped to be longer dangerous to their
enemies. So to Captain Evertsen in the new land
his title had acquired a purely peaceful signifi-
cance. That his business was profitable is proved
by the estate which he left, and by the generous
plenishings and furnishings of his unusually large
and commodious house.

Among the notes which I took from Mr. Cod-
wise's conversations I am glad to find a description
and a rough plan of the ground floors of what
were in their day considered two of the finest
dwellings on the island of Manhattan. They
were built at about the same time — after the same
design and probably by the same workmen — for
two men who were partners in business and at-
tached friends — Captain Niclaes Evertsen, and
the ancestor of Mr. Codwise, whose surname
may have been either Codwise or Beeckman, as
that was the maiden name of my great-uncle's
mother.

The Codwise house stood on what is now Dey
Street, where it was still considered a handsome

residence, until destroyed by fire not long before

my great-uncle's twentieth birthday.

Land on Manhattan Island was not then sold
by the inch, and these two houses were built with
a glorious contempt of economy of space. In the
center of each rose a great chimney-stack of stone,
having four immense fireplaces, each striding
across the comer of a wide, low-ceiled, broad-win-
dowed room about twenty-two feet square. On
either side, beyond the four rooms ^us grouped
around the chimney-stack, were two others of
about equal dimensions, each having its own fire-
place, for two more chimneys rose, one in each
gable-end of the houses. The first story of the
Evcrtscn house was built of stone ; that of the Cod-
wise house was constructed of bufi-colored brick
imported from Holland — a needless expense, as
Mr. Codwise used to say, because brick-making
was one of the earliest and most successful indus-
tries started in the new land.

In both houses the exterior walls of the upper
stories were covered by overlapping cedar shingles,
clipped at the comers to produce an octagonal
effect, as one may see them in certain cottages of
to-day. In front and at the gable^nds the second
stories projected a little beyond the lower. At the
rear there was but one story, the long roof sloping
from the peak by a slightly inward-curving sweep
till it terminated over the low, comfortable-looking
stoep, upon which opened the rear windows and

doors of the first floor. All the first-floor rooms
were handsomely wainscoted, and these, as well as
the heavy ceiling beams, were, as Mr. Codwise re-
membered them, cased and painted white. Each
fireplace was surrounded by borders of tiles, all
illustrating scriptural or naval scenes, save one set,
which, in reddish brown figures on a white ground,
portrayed the adventures of Don Quixote. One
of these last tiles I saw in Mr. Codwise's possession
in i860. The walls of one room in each of the
houses were hung with embossed leather, which
had once been richly decorated in arabesque de-
signs, and even in my great-uncle's remembrance
the gold tracings had not been badly tarnished.
Other walls in the best rooms of both houses were
hung with a very substantial sort of paper, pic-
tured with sprawling landscapes in which wind-
mills, square-rigged boats, and very chunky cows
figured prominently. This was said to have been
put on soon after the houses were built. Accord-
ing to the custom of the time, the bedrooms were
always washed with lime.

On the second floor there were six rooms across
the front, extending to the center of the house.
The rest was left unceiled — a big open garret
with square windows at each end and dormers
along the sides of the roof, which sloped fitim the
peak to the floor. In this great garret flax-hatchel-
ing, wool-carding, and weaving went on almost
without cessation, save in the very coldest weather.

when the looms were abandoned to the compan-
ionship of the rows of smoked hams hanging from
the huge beams, the long ropes of sausage-links,
the festoons of dried apples, and all the other
stores which could endure the winter frosts. Those
that could not do this were safely packed away in
the dim recesses of the deep cellars which ran
under the whole house. The latter was ventilated
during the summer by leaving open the low doors,
which formed a sort of sloping roof, covering the
stone steps leading from the outer air on all sides
of the house to the deeps below. In winter these
doorways were filled in with straw and dried
leaves, while earth and sods were laid over the
closed doors in order to effectually exclude the
frost. After this was done, late in the fall, the pitch-
dark cellars could only be entered by the interior
stairs.

The diamond-paned and leaded window-sashes
had originally been brought from Holland; but
by the time Mr. Codwise could remember them,
all but a few had been replaced by other sashes
filled with nearly square panes, twelve to each
sash. This glass was so full of knots and streaks
that no object seen through it appeared to be
entire, but to be broken into disjointed parts.
The glass of the imported diamond-shaped panes
was much clearer.

At what time the Evertsen house was taken
down, or whether it was burned, I do not know.

but believe it to have been burned a few years
before the Codwise mansion. After the destruc-
tion of each of them Mr. Codwise said that in the
center of the central chimney-stack, which re-
mained standing like a strong tower in the midst
of the ruins, was found a small, diamond-shaped
chamber, across the longest diameter of which two
men might have lain down side by side. The
floor of this chamber was of brick, and its side
walls were the stone backs of the four comer fire-
places. Ceiling it had none, for the walls of the.
flues sloped inward as they rose, until at the top of
the stack there was only a comparatively small
opening, through which the noonday sun might
send a blinking ray to cheer the floor beneath, or
rain or snow might pitilessly descend. The little
chamber was entered from opposite directions
by two strait doors which formed the backs of two
of the eight narrow closets flanking the four fire-
places. Good and secure hiding-places these
chambers were, whether for men or for treasure.
My uncle said that his father had seen the one in
their house used for both purposes during our
Revolutionary War, and to oblige both Tories
and patriots ; for his ancestors, whether the pater-
nal Codwise or the maternal Beeckman, had main-
tained a strict neutrality, and were able sometimes
to extend a measure of protection to personal
friends in either party in their times of need. It
is needless to say that the cautious heads of the

families did not confide the secret of the chimney-
stack to many persons. In summer this hiding-
place must have been rather damp ; but in winter,
when the fires were burning in all four of the fire-
places which surrounded it, it may not have been
an altogether uncomfortable refuge.

A long, covered passageway led from one end
of the stoep to a comer of the kitchen, which then,
as is still usual in our Southern States, was in a
detached building. Beyond it, again, stretched
' away the negro quarters, built sometimes of logs
and sometimes of brick or stone, and mostly of
one story in height At right angles with these
were the bams and stables, low, but exceedingly
broad ; also a blacksmithy, where horses and oxen
were shod and repairs made, and a carpenter's
shop. Taken together, the outbuildings made
three sides of a hollow square in which were the
milking- and feeding-yards. All this, of course,
was on the fermstead of the Evertsens. The
owners of the Dey Street house were merchants
only, and had no outbuildings save stables for a
pair of horses and a cow or two. It must be
remembered that nearly all well-to-do citizens kept
cows enough to supply at least all the milk for
family use until the very latter part of the eigh-
teenth century.

Neither of these houses followed the common
Dutch custom of standing with gable-end to the
street. Both opened from the center of the two-

)

story front almost directly upon the scantily trav-
eled highway, but at the rear were surrounded by
fruit-orchards and large gardens, wherein great
square beds of vegetables were edged by borders
of box or of flowers, as the case might be — for
your true Dutchman is not confined to strict util-
ity, but is a flower-lover and cultivator all his
days.

A peculiarity of both houses was that the only
closets were those which flanked the fireplaces or
surmounted the high and narrow mantels. Great
carved chests of hardwoods and massive mahogany
structures of drawers, or combinations of shelves
and drawers, were to be found in nearly every
room occupied by the members of a wealthy
Dutch family. Apparently clothes were never
hung up, but always laid away at full length in
these and similar receptacles.

In a large old mahogany wardrobe which once
stood in the Evertsen house, the three drawers
which form the lower half are very deep. The
shelves which form the upper half are equally
deep, and shove tn and out like drawers, only with-
out fronts, while broad doors close over them.
The wood still shows its beautiful grain, though it
has turned almost black with age, while the artis-
tically cut brass of the handles and escutcheons
responds to the labor of the polisher as brightly as
it could have done two centuries ago.

Among other articles which once stood in the

102

old Evertscn house is a tall mahogany structure
apparently designed for many uses, whose five
long and shallow drawers might have held its
owner's coats and breeches of satin or velvet, his
long silk stockings, his fine linen shirts frilled with
costly laces, and even his voluminous wig. In
the center, behind a leaf which turns down to
form a desk, is the little bank of pigeonholes for
holding filed papers, just as we see them in more
modem desks, only that among them are secret
receptacles for private papers, and two slides
which, when drawn out, were intended to support
candlesticks in such a way that the never too bril-
liant candle-light should best fell upon the desk's
contents. Above the pigeonholes, behind* the
doors of mahogany, rise broad, deep shelves which
may have been used to hold books or clothes or
bed- and table-linen. To my mind, the varied
divisions of the shelf-space are not so suggestive
of literature as they are both of the linen of the
housewife and of the tall ledgers of the prosper-
ous merchant, with long accounts to keep between
the traders of the interior, his correspondents in
the West Indian islands of Tobago, St. Thomas,
and Santa Croix, and with the merchants and
manufacturers of Antwerp and Amsterdam.

Though few books have descended to us fi^om
the ancestral homes of New Amsterdam, it does
not prove that their owners were any more illit-
erate than the settlers of the other colonies. The

103

change of language from Dutch to English would
account for the natural disappearance of many of
the Dutch books. I know of one sacrilegious
creature who admits that about thirty years ago
she destroyed some forty Dutch volumes which
she had found in a garret of a house which her
husband had inherited, " to get them out of the
way, though the bindings of some were so pretty
it was almost a pity."

A serpentine sideboard of mahogany finely
inlaid with satin wood, now in the possession of
one of the Evertsen descendants, is believed also
to have stood in this house. It is known to have
descended through six generations to its present
owner. Sideboards there must have been here,
for there was much silver and china, scattered pieces
of both of which still remain. It is said that there
was little of the latter sold in New York city
prior to 1730. However this may have been, it is
certain, from the quantities that were bequeathed,
that wealthy residents owned much china long
before that date. Canton china was privately
imported at a very early period.

Not far from the present abiding-place of the
curiously decorated and really beautiful escritoire
above described is a mirror in two parts, the
smaller about one quarter the size of the larger,
the whole, with its frame of mahogany and the
carved figures of gilded wood which surround it,
being about six and one half feet in height by two

104.

feet in width. The glass is said to be of Venetian
make, and is still remarkably clear. So is that of
two oval mirrors set in frames of beautifully cut
brass, bearing on each side girandoles for three
candles. The last two mirrors have been (iresentcd
to a historical society.

Dining-tables with many slender legs, bed-
steads, both of mahogany and of black oak, each
with four high posts and deep side pieces, all
richly carved, but too thick to be graceful, and
cabinets curiously inlaid with ivory and tortoise-
shell, stood in both of these old houses, and some
of the fine pieces are still in existence. Tradiuon
associates all the things we have particularly men-
tioned with the old Evertsen house; but they
may not have belonged to the first Niclaes and
Margrietye. Many of them were probably added
by their son, the second Niclaes and his wife,
Susanna Reuters, the great-granddaughter of the
famous Admiral De Ruyter, who had many a time
fought side by side with the Admiral Evertsen
who was her husband's great-grandfether. The
two old sea-kings had not always been agreed in
regard to the best way to serve their fatherland;
but both of them were true patriots and grand
men, and did justice to each other's honesty and
capacity, so we may imagine that they would
have blessed the union of their descendants.

One possession which the first Niclaes must
have guarded with the most jealous care, perhaps
keeping it hidden in the secret strong room, was

'05

the silver-hilted sword presented by the state of
Zealand to his grandfather, the brave old Admiral
Jan Evertsen. The hilt of this sword, then broken
ftom its blade, was seen in Poughkcepsie, New
York, by my fether when he was a boy of about
fifteen, that is, in 1825 or 1826. It was then in
the guardianship of a Mr. Richards, who had mar-
ried a daughter of Nicholas Evertsen, the third of
his name in this country, and a great-grandson of
the first Niclaes. Upon the hilt was a handsomely
engraved inscription in the Dutch language, which,
unfortunately, the greatly interested boy could not
understand; but he well remembered the names
and date. The latter we do not now recall ; but
my brother, Gilbert Livingston Smith of Sharon,
Connecticut, my sister, Mrs. Robert Clinton Geer
of Brooklyn, New York, and I have all heard our
Either relate the incident and describe the hilt and
inscription too often not to have them impressed
upon our memories. The date upon the sword-
hilt must have been previous to 1666, as that was
the year in which the old hero died, fighting
against England in a naval battle of four days'
duration, on the first day of which his brother Cor-
nells, also an admiral, had perished. The hilt,
my fether said, was very heavy, and the size such
that it could only have been wielded by an unusu-
ally large hand. Almost all the men descended
from the first owner of this sword have been very
large and strong.

Mr. Codwise remembered having heard of this

]o6

weapon, and also had heard his &ther tell of a fine
gold medal which Captain Niclaes Evertsen had
shown to some friends in his presence when a boy
— a medal which had been presented to Admiral
Evertsen by, as he believed, the States-General of
Holland.

What has become of these precious articles?
Are they still in the possession of some branch of
a &mily which has become scattered through
several of the States of our Union? Or have
they, — have they — shameful thought! — shared
the &te of so many of what should have been cher-
ished heirlooms, and lost their identity in the sil-
versmith's hateful melting-pot ?

As alt old American &milies too well know,
there came a time when, old ideals having slipped
away like children's outgrown garments, it was
long esteemed a weakness to have a care for heir-
looms as such. During this most deplorable in*
terval, how many invaluable ancestral relics were
ignobly converted into spoons and forks! An
uncle of my own — a man, too, who had more than
usual regard for ancestral relics — within my own
recollection caused five dinner-plates of beaten
silver, dating from between 1600 and 1650, to be
melted to make a large pitcher! The latter is
indeed much more beautiful than the plates, which
were as plain as pewter and not a bit handsomer,
but I never look at it without regretting its
existence.

CHAPTER VI

THE CARES OF THE HUYSVROUW

CHAPTER VI.

THE CARES OF THE
HUYSVROUW.

Every Homestead a

Manufactory.

Slavery.

Grood Providers.

Spinning and Weaving.

Soap and Candle Making.

Washing.

Bread and YeasL

Butter Making.

Nursery Lore.

"IT seems to have been the rule in all

the colonies that the wealthier the

' settler the greater the amount of

labor constantly carried on under his

I roof. There were no manufactories,

and almost everything needed for household con-
sumption or service had necessarily to be either
■ imported or made at home. The buysvrouvfs labors
were by no means confined to the wise dispensing
of the liberally provided stores. She and her
daughters were happy and contented producers, as
well as dispensers and consumers. If they did
not personally scrub the uncarpeted floors, or
build and feed the ever-devouring flames in the
enormous fireplaces, or hatchcl the flax, or card
the wool, or weave the heavy stuffs for household
use, or make the soap, or chop the sausage-meat,
or dip the candles, or wash the linen — they had to
know, as only experience can know, just how
each and all of these things should be done, and
also how to so marshal and direct their many
hand-men and -maidens that the most and best
work should be accomplished with the least fric-

tion. When reading, as one occasionally does in
our day, of some " wonderful woman " who super-
intends a factory, or carries on some other line of
equally active business, we should remember that
very likely her grandmother once had as much
responsibility, and fulfilled it as well, without hav-
ing to go beyond the bounds of her own house to
do so.

The days of the huysvrouws were also those of
negro slavery, and they display all the best and
some of the worst features of the system. If, on
the one hand, the house-mistress were always sure
of retaining the services of a well-trained and
faithful servant, on the other hand it was by no
means easy to get rid of one who was sulky,
stupid, or careless. In fact, the servant question
was as general a topic among the interested two
centuries ago as it is now. Kings may go and
Presidents come, and institutions may change like
the weather, but human nature remains the same,
and the diaries of from ten to tenscore years ago
are found full of lamentations over the shortcom-
ings of domestics.

Every farmstead of any pretension had to be,
at the same time, a manufactory of almost all the
things required for daily use. It is not probable
that at the beginning of the eighteenth century
there were many meat markets (or " fleshers ") to
be found, even in the cities, and supplies of fbwlS
and meat of all sorts save game were produced

Ill

on the &rms, where all that could not be economi-
cally disposed of while fresh was preserved by
drying or spicing or salting or smoking for win-
ter use. Several weeks of steady labor were re-
quired in each autumn to prepare the barrels of
salted pork and of corned beef, to cure the scores
of hams and sides of bacon, to prepare the miles
of sausage-links, to try out and preserve the many
stone jars full of lard so nicely that it would keep
sweet the year round, to prepare the souse, the
headcheese, and the roUichies. These last were
made of chopped beef rolled in tripe and smoked.
When desired for the table the little rolls were
boiled and served cold, or fried and eaten hot.
Besides all these, each in its proper season, were
prepared stores of fish of various sorts, pickled,
dried, or spiced, and great quantities of winter
vegetables, as well as such fruits as could be kept
for winter use by drying, or by preserving with
sugar by the pound-for-pound method, so solidly
sweet that the descendants of those who ate them
must envy the grandparents' powers of digestion.

Of all the colonies, the Dutch were the most
famous for these delicious (and indigestible) con-
serves. More than the others also did they distil
and prepare an endless variety of cordials and
fragrant waters for drinks or for flavoring to dainty
dishes. Their mince-pies, fairly tipsy with their
liberal allowances of hard cider or brandy, or both,
their famous supplies of cookies, of crullers, of

^etoeis (doughnuts), and c4 spjced czkcs, were
regularly made once or twice a week. Waffles,
wa^rs, raised muffins, and griddle-cakcs crf^ various
sorts were in daily tea-table use. Supawn, made
of com-meal boiled in water, salted and stirred the
while with a wooden spoon till thick and smooth,
took the place of modem cereals, and was served
on every break&st-table the year round- It was
eaten cither with butter and that good, old-&sh-
ioncd West India molasses which no searching
can now discover, or with milk. Sometimes, when
die weather was too hot or too cold to make good
butter, there was cream used, but usually this bad
to be saved to make butter ; at the same time,
skimmed milk would have been considered too
mean a portion to offer to the cats. Dried fruits
which had been previously soaked overnight
were often cooked with and stirred through the
supawn, giving an added flavor which was much
relished.

The poultry-yard was every huysvrouw's pride.
Even the wife of the importer, banker, or profes-
sional man living in the city kept flocks of hens,
geese, ducks, and sometimes turkeys; but as the
turkey was a notorious wanderer, and its eggs were
not prized for eating, nor its feathers for beds, it
was never very plentiful in the New Amsterdam
poultry-yards.

Oysters and clams were brought in large quan-
tities in the late autumri, and buried in beds of

'^3

clean sea-sand, mixed with Indian meat, tn the
cellars, where they were profusely watered twice a
week with water brought in tubs from the bay or
river. In this way they were said to keep fat
and good until the ice had broken up in the early
spring, and the vast beds of native shell-Bsh
which lay beneath the waters surrounding Man-
hattan Island were again accessible. It must be
remembered that these waters were then frozen a
great part of the winter, there not being sufficient
traffic to keep the ice broken as now.

Game of all kinds, from deer to quails, was
abundant for many years, and for at least twenty
years subsequent to our Revolutionary War was
both plentiful and cheap in the markets.

For many years there were no public bakeries,
and the femily bread-making was no inconsidera-
ble toil. Even in the days of Margrietye Evert-
sen's granddaughters there was less yeast used
than leaven. The latter is a lump of the latest
baking buried in flour and kept in a cool, dry
place until needed for the next baking. Number-
less were the accidents which might happen to
this. A degree too cold or a trifle too damp, and
the leaven would not rise, so the bread was heavy ;
or a degree too hot, and the leaven would ferment,
and so the bread was sour. If the sponge stood
too short or too long a time, or its tempera-
ture was not just right, again there was trouble.
If the big brick oven was under-heated, the well-

made loaves would over-rise and sour before they
were sufficiently baked, or they might be removed
too quickly from the oven, and the half-baked
dough would fall into flat and solid masses. If
the oven was over-heated, the loaves would again
be heavy, for the crust would form before the
bread had had time to take its last rising in the
oven as it should. The only wonder is that in
those days there was ever any good bread ; but
the testimony is ample that among the Dutch
huysvrouws good bread was rather the rule than
the exception.

Probably the experienced cooks could never
have told how they did it ; but practice had made
them so perfect that they knew to a second and a
degree just the time and the heat required. A
relative of my mother had married a wife of
unbroken Dutch descent, and, with a tenacity
characteristic of her progenitors in clinging to all old
ways that had been proved to be good (and even,
it must be confessed, to some that had not), she
continued to use the old brick oven as long as she
lived, and everything baked in it seemed to my
childish taste to be perfection of its kind. She
superintended every step of the long opera-
tion, from the setting of the sponge overnight
(with yeast, though, instead of leaven : she had
been induced to consent to this innovation) to the
removal of the sweet, light loaves from the oven
sometime during the next forenoon. Full, round

loaves of a brown so light as to be almost golden, I
can see them now, standing in rows slightly aslant
so that air could pass beneath, and covered loosely
with spotless cloths of coarse linen, which last
was as home-made as the bread, only not in her
own time, but in that of her mother. Poor
Auntie Aaltje (Aletta) would never have believed
it possible, but after her death it was discovered
that the dark-faced, white-turbaned old Chloe, who
for so many years had patiently called her mistress
to test the oven, and without a word (but some-
times with a covert smile) had accepted the pa-
tronizing verdict that " it would do," required no
" superintending." But the huysvrouw who did not
personally oversee all the important operations of
housekeeping would have seemed to herself and to
others to have failed in her vocation.

One of the most troublesome of all the house-
wife's duties was the quarterly soap-making. I
can remember this function as performed at this
house. Ugh I what a troublesome thing it was,
and unsavory! For several weeks the "leach-tubs"
stood in an outhouse filled with tightly packed
hard wood-ashes from the big 6replaces, where
wood was always burned during my kinswoman's
life. The tubs, or rather big barrels, being filled
to within about eight inches of the top with
the ashes, were supported upon frames, beneath
which stood small wooden tubs. Twice a day the
vacant space left above the ashes was filled with

ii6

boiling water. This, after it had slowly filtered
through the ashes, became lye. Its strength was
tested by an egg or by a potato about the size of
an egg. If these would float about one third of
their size above the lye, it was deemed strong
enough; if not, it was poured through the ashes
again ; if found too strong, water was added.

When enough lye of the right strength had
been collected, it was put into enormous iron pots
and bung from the cranes over the open fire ; and
though my relative had come to endure a cook-stove
for ordinary things, she always used the fireplace
for making soap. The fragments of grease which
accumulate in every household had been tried out
while fresh, and reduced to cakes like tallow, only
not so hard. These were now cut up and put into
the kettles, apparently by guess. Then the boil-
ing went on. If it was all right the soap would
"come" in half an hour. If not, it might be many
hours, or even days, during which water, or stronger
lye, or weaker lye, or more grease might be added,
also apparently by guess. The soap, when at last
successfully produced, was in substance like a good,
firm jelly ; in color, a marbled brown ; its odor
that of a clear, clean alkali. It was very good for
scrubbing and also for laundry purposes, though it
must not be used too freely or it would yellow the
clothes. It never made holes in them, as some of
the modern sorts do. The husband was of Hugue-
not descent, and progressive in all things, so that

the quarterly soap-making ended in his house after
his wife's death.

This Auntie Aaltje was as decidedly Dutch in
her ways as if she had been her own grandmother.
While she lived there must no chum be used save
the tall stoneware jar, perhaps the same one — at any
rate, one probably just like it — which her old grand-
mother had caused her maids to fill to one half its
capacity with good, rich, yellow cream, and place,
according to the season, in a tub of ice-cold or of
hot water. One of the maids meanwhile stood
patiently beside the jar, plying the dasher up and
down with rapid, even strokes until the butter
"came." This also was done by guess; but if
the huysvrouw's " gucssery " was good — in other
words, if she were an expert — the cream would
have been skimmed and put into the chum at pre-
cisely the right moment and at the right tempera-
ture; then, in from twenty minutes to half an
hour, the golden globules would have formed and
gathered, and the butter would be ready to be
skimmed out into a round tray of maple-wood,
beautifully white, and made cold with well-water
and " sweet with salt" Then with a water-soaked
ladle the buttermilk was pressed out and salt
added. This was the butter's first working. After
a few hours it was again worked, and the next
morning for the third time. The huysvrouw did
not wash her butter. To extract the buttermilk
she depended upon the conscientious muscular

ii8

labor <^ her maids in pressing it aU oat If tbis
were not successfully done die butter would soon
become rancid. The only wonder was that quan-
tities did keep perfectlj sweet and good, tfaou^
very salt, from ooe June until Ac next. June
and October were con«dercd the best mondis for
packing winter butter, die conditions of tempera-
ture and food for the cows being then nearest to
perfection.

The custom of quarterly clothes-washings had
been brou^t from Holland, and was long coo-
dnued here amtMig the Dutch senlers, uotwidi-
standing that our summer beats, and the immense
quantides of clothes necessary to maintain the state
of cleanliness required by Dutch insdncts and tra-
ditions, must have rendered it exceedingly incon-
venient. As lately as 1760, we find in an old letter
that "Grandmother Blum is so deep in her Quar-
terly wash this Weeke that she has no time only
to send her love." The writer of the letter was a
New-Englander married to a citizen of New York
city, and the custom undoubtedly was strange to
her. The washing was usually done in an out-
house called a bleeckeryen where the water was
heated over the fire in immense kettles, and all the
other processes of laundry work, conducted by the
most laborious methods, were carried on there.
This work usually required not less than a week,
and quite frequently two weeks. During the three
months intervening between these periods of cruelly

>^9

hard labor, the soiled clothes had been accumulat-
ing from day to day in very large hampers of open
basketwork, and stored in the bleeckeryen. It was
this system of quarterly washings that rendered —
and in parts of Holland and of Germany still ren-
ders — necessary the great stores of household and
personal linens which are supposed to be brought
to her new home by every bride, and for which
the mothers begin to prepare almost from the birth
of the first daughter. This preparation continued
in the new land long after the custom of quarterly
washings had given place to the much more sen-
sible and sanitary custom now prevailing.

As the Grand Opera House in Paris was lighted
with candles, affording certainly a dim if not a re-
ligious light, until sometime during the Regency, it
is not to be supposed that lamps came into use in
the fer-away little city of New Amsterdam until a
great many years later. In fact, there is little men-
tion of the use of oil lamps in America before the
middle of the eighteenth century. Wax candles
were imported for festival occasions, but immense
quantities of tallow candles were yearly dipped or
molded for ordinary consumption. In all regions
where the waxy and deliciously fragrant bayberry
was plentiful, candles were made from it. When
well prepared the wax was slightly translucent and
of a light green in color. The snuff" emitted so
delicate an odor that on festive occasions, where
many candles were burning, it was usual to blow

some of them out at frequent intervals so that the
room might be kept pleasantly perfumed.

The great dependence for cheerful light as well
as for warmth in winter must have been upon the
blazing knots of resinous wood dexterously dis-
tributed in among the slower burning logs of hick-
ory, oak, and maple. By the blaze of these
friendly fires there was seen much domestic happi-
ness and much social enjoyment of a homely sort.
The Dutch family relations were singularly close
and intimate. Parental affection was especially
strong and tender.

Among the descendants of old Dutch families
here there still remain so many fragments of the
nursery rhymes which used to charm the round-
feced little Dutch lads and lassies that there must
once have existed a copious literature of nursery
lore. Part of one such jingle I can remember as
my fether sang it to my younger brother, who was
a remarkably beautiful, black-eyed little fellow,
then probably about two years old. I remember
his teasing my father to play " trip-trop " with him.
Then my father crossed his knees, and sat Willie
astride of the suspended foot, holding him in place
by the two hands. Then, swinging up and down
the foot holding the delighted child, the rich,
melodious barytone trolled out a catch of which I
could only recall the first and last lines until the
missing ones were supplied by Mrs. Vanderbilt in

121

her most interesting " Social History of Flatbush."
The completed rhyme runs :

" Trip a trop a tronjes.

De vorkens in de boonjes,
De koejes in de klaver,
De paarden in de haver,
De eenjes in de waterplass.
So groot myn kleine [ ~\ was.

Mrs. Vandcrbilt translates this as follows :

•* The father's (or mother's) knee a throne is.
As the pigs are in the beans.
As the cows are in the clover,
As the horses are in the oats.
As the ducks are splashing in the water.
So great my little [ ] is."

When the child's name was of more than two
syllables poppetje was substituted, this meaning
poppet, doll, or baby, a term of endearment. Sev-
eral of my relations of Dutch descent used to call
rac their " kleine poppetje." At the close of the
last line of the foregoing jingle the singer is sup-
posed to toss the child as high as he can reach.
My father's paternal grandmother, from whose lips
he had learned the little Dutch jingle when a boy,
was born Margaret Evertson, and was a great-
granddaughter of the first Niclaes Evertsen.

To play "trip-trop" was always my little
brother Willie's bedtime entertainment by the open
nursery fire. So handsome and so happy were my
&ther and little brother, so impossible does it seem
to associate the idea of death with either, that even
now I cannot believe that they have joined the
other dear fiithers and babies who played " trip-
trop" so many generations before them.

CHAPTER VII

THE ESCAPE OP A HUGUENOT FAMILY

CHAPTER VII.

THE ESCAPE OF A HU-
GUENOT FAMILY.

Edict of Nantes and its
Revocation.

The Huguenot Exodus.

Arts Carried Abroad.

Daniel L'Estrange.

A Huguenot "Lady in

Waiting."

An Effectual Disguise.

To New RochcUe by

Way of England.

PVERY one knows of the French reli-

E/^ gious wars in the sixteenth century,
^ and of the terrible massacre of St.
"" Bartholomew, followed, after more
wars, by the accession of " Henry of
glorious memory," and by his promulgation, in
1598, of the celebrated Edict of Nantes. This
edict by no means made all men equal before the
law, but at least it granted toleration, as well as
the most important of civil rights, and a measure
of protection to the French Protestants. Almost
as well known, but not so often brought to mind,
is the long course of gradual encroachment on the
rights conferred upon the Protestants by that edict.
This encroachment never ceased until — long after
the rights granted by the edict had been practically
withdrawn — the edict itself was formally revoked,
in 1685, by Louis XIV.

There is nothing in history more remarkable
than the patience with which these constantly
increasing and most odious persecutions were borne
by the persecuted, except the fetuity which led to
the final act of despotism, causing the expatriation

126

of hundreds of thousands of the best citizens of
France. If non-resistance to tyranny be a virtue,
the Huguenots, for nearly half a century, had been
the most virtuous of people. If adherence to their
principles under every form of ill-treatment be a
folly, their folly was unapproached. Either way
they suffered for conscience' sake, and no people
in the history of the world have exceeded them in
this. Politically, the Protestant minority of the
nation had no differences with the Catholic major-
ity. All were alike loyal to the monarchical form
of government and to the existing dynasty ; there
was no conflict of race or of province ; and those
of both the highest and the lowest social positions
were to be found alike in the ranks of both parties.
Religion was the sole ground of division.

In the decade preceding the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, the exodus of the Huguenots
from all parts of France had been great and con-
tinuous, in spite of the utmost vigilance on the
part of the authorities. The numbers of the escaped
have been variously estimated at from five hun-
dred thousand to three millions. Some good
judges think that about eight hundred thousand
would be a conservative estimate.

In spite of his blind arrogance, Louis Quatorze
was not so stupid as to wish to deport the best-
behaved and most productive of all his subjects.
He only made the mistake of supposing that he
could command the minds and consciences as

127

easily as he could the arms and purses of his sub-
missive people. To this end he determined to
buy heaven for himself by ** converting '* the
Huguenots to his own faith, and at the same time
to maintain the material prosperity of his kingdom
by preventing the escape of the many gentlemen
of landed estates, the bankers, the wealthy manu-
facturers, and the artisans who, at this time, com-
posed the bulk of the detested party. Hence
every new act of persecution was accompanied by
additional precautions to prevent the escape of the
victims.

Most fortunate of all the Huguenots were those
who dwelt nearest the frontier. Under the terrible
and infamously effective system of the "drago-
nades," it is truly wonderful that such large num-
bers of the persecuted should have succeeded in
reaching places of safety ; but the many are always
better than the few. Thousands of the refugees
long held in grateful remembrance the names of
their Roman Catholic neighbors who, often at the
risk of their own estates or even of their lives,
gave valuable assistance in the flight of their
Protestant friends.

No matter how fiercely might bum the anger
of the obstinate monarch at seeing the industries
of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and
Great Britain built up by those who had there
sought refuge from his own tyranny, he still had
the chagrin of knowing his best subjects to be

128

continually escaping from his clutches; and to-
day the descendants of the Huguenots are among
the worthiest and most enterprising of all the
citizens of the countries which he most hated.

Many of those Huguenots who escaped to Eng-
land subsequently came to her colonics. Although
most of the refugees had been prosperous in
France, and not a few had been wealthy citizens,
comparatively few had been able to take much
money away with them — the circumstances of
their flight precluded that; but they all brought
energy, industry, thrift, and power of endurance,
as well as that truly delightful birthright of their
nation, an invincible lightness of heart, while many
of them also possessed skill in some hitherto pecu-
liarly French handicraft, or in mechanical methods
of unusual scope.

Like the Plymouth Pilgrims, the Huguenots
came without any backing of national trade or
class interest; but while the first came to preserve
civil and "religious rights which they were fearful
of losing, the latter were involuntary exiles who,
having already lost all rights, were flying for their
lives, and were of all social grades, embracing a
few noblemen, a larger number of la petite noblesse
who would have been called "gentlemen com-
moners" in England, and of professional men,
merchants, bankers, manu£icturers, and artisans,
besides a comparatively small number of peasants.
Of the last-named there were fewer than of the other

129

classes, partly, perhaps, because it was impossible
to escape from their enemies without the use of
. a great deal of money. Those who came were
probably brought at the expense of the richer col-
onists, who expected to be repaid in labor.

Notwithstanding that the difference of their pre-
vious social conditions might have been supposed
to prevent a strong feeling of unity among the
Huguenot refugees, their " oneness of heart and
mind " was from the first an object of wonder to
the Dutch and English colonists, by whom they
had been kindly welcomed. The persecuted
were bound together by a common language,
common perils, and a common faith. In their
little settlement at New Rochelle there was for
many years as near an approach to apostolic
ways of living as has been seen since apostolic
days. They were received most kindly by the
earlier colonists, but they asked for no charity
for even the poorest among them. All who had
been successful enough in sending money out of
France in advance of themselves, or had been able
to bring any with them, placed their funds at the
disposal of their chief men, to be shared as necessity
required. It is said that they invariably cared for
their own poor, and that these did not remain long
in poverty, but were soon able to return all the
sums which had been advanced to them by the
wealthier members of the flock.

Some of the most flourishing of the hitherto

purely French industrial arts, such as the 6ne linen,
silk, tapestry, and china manufactures, had been
gradually carried to England, Germany, and Hol-
land by the escaping Huguenots during the long
years of persecution preceding the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes. Therefore to their brethren
in these older lands the refugees in the new land
sent for looms and other machines of better quali-
ties than had hitherto been known here.

They did not have the capital to start their own
industries on a large scale; neither did the British
Colonial Office offer anything but discouragement
for such undertakings; but every household be-
came a little industrial colony, those who had
never labored before now learning to do so, with
cheerful hearts.

The Huguenots were as sternly Calvinistic in
their principles as ever were the Plymouth Pil-
grims ; but these principles did not seem to impart
any bitterness to their natures. The little settle-
ment in the colony of New York which they
fondly called New Rochelle was from the first an
abode of poverty and hardships most cheerfully
borne. My dear mother's ancestry was very largely
Huguenot, and from a few records of the traditions
of her mother's family I have gleaned some frag-
ments of interest which probably have a strong re-
semblance to the family histories of many others
of similar descent.

In 1672 Daniel L'Estrange of Orleans, France,

■3'

was matriculated as a student of philosophy in the
Academy of Geneva, Switzerland, which at that
time was the only existing place where a French
Protestant could receive a liberal education in
his own language. The " pretended reformed "
were not allowed to have schools of their own in
France ; nor, on the other hand, was it permitted
to them to send their children to tlie Catholic
schools without previously renouncing their own
and professing the national iaith.

A few years later we find that M. L'Estrange
married Charlotte Le Mesire, also of Orleans. A
few years later still, the pair are residing in Paris,
where the husband is traditionally believed to
have been an officer of the Royal Guard — a tra-
dition which seems to derive some support from
the fact that after his arrival in England he is
known to have held a lieutenancy in the Royal
Guard of James 11. Strange as it may seem, many
Huguenots filled positions in the personal guard
of Louis XIV, where they were comparatively
safe from persecution, as their places were held by
a certain unwritten law of inheritance from the
days when Henry IV had filled its ranks, from the
commander down to the privates, with those upon
whose fidelity he could best rely ; and these were
undoubtedly his old brethren in arms and in the
&ith which political reasons had caused him to
forsake.

While her husband was in the Royal Guard,

13^

Mme. L'Estrange was one of the ladies in wait-
ing upon the dauphiness, Marie de Baviere, the
gracious, studious, retiring, and accomplished
daughter-in-law of Louis XIV. Thus the wife
of the Huguenot was often obliged to serve her
turn of duty at St. Germain and sometimes at
Versailles. Although Mme. L'E^trange was
well known to be of the "pretended reformed"
faith, she was not molested, because she was a
recognized favorite of the dauphiness. Perhaps
the position of his wife at court combined with
his own in the Royal Guard to save M.
L'E^trange for a while from persecution, although
he was known to be a determined, if not an aggres-
sive. Huguenot; but the time came when he was
obliged to seek safety in flight, and that, too, with-
out seeing his wife. She was then performing her
tour de scrcke at Versailles; and her husband could
only send her a verbal message, requesting that she
should join him, with their child, and as much of
their property as she could convert into ready
money, at some designated point on the coast,
where he would wait for her as long as possible,
and whence they could take ship for England.

The person who was intrusted with the message
either could not or did not convey it to the wife
until many days, if not some weeks, after her hus-
band's flight from Paris. I relate the story as I
heard it from the lips of my maternal grandmother,
who had heard it from her paternal grandfather.

■33

Some of the particulars which she related are also
given in Baird's " History of the Huguenot Emi-
gration to America." I believe that the parts
which rest only upon oral tradition are not less
trustworthy than those quoted by Mr. Baird, which
rest upon documentary evidence.

The husband's message was at last delivered,
not directly to the wife, but to some one who con-
veyed it to the dauphiness. In spite of, or rather
perhaps because oC her high position, the dauphi-
ness was herself so closely watched that she had
not the opportunity to transmit the husband's
message safely until the hour of the coucher^ which
that night chanced to be particularly late. As the
Huguenot lady was slipping the night-robe over
the head of the dauphiness, the latter hastily
whispered :

"In the cabinet at the foot of the stairs leading
to my apartments, you will find one who will tell
you what you must do, and do without a moment's
delay." Aloud she added : " I am sorry you are
suffering so much. You are excused from duty
until I send for you."

A few moments later Mme. L'Estrange was
in the designated cabinet. There she first heard
that her husband had left Paris, she having for
some time supposed him to be in hiding in that
city, and also learned that, his flight having become
known to the authorities, his property had been
confiscated. The kind dauphiness had thought-

'34

fully given a purse of money to the messenger,
but it was not large, as she was not highly favored
by her lather-in-Iaw, and had never very much
cash at her command. The messenger had also
two horses in readiness, and was ordered to accom-
pany Mme. L'Estrange until she should have
got safely started on her journey, under the care of
friends whom she was expected to meet. But the
dauphiness had apparently forgotten the existence
of the child. The infant of two years was under
the care of the married sister of Mme. L'Estrange
in Paris, and thither the mother felt that she must
first proceed, though the delay was well-nigh fetal
to the success of her undertaking.

So well watched was every avenue of escape
from Paris that several days were lost before an
opportunity for leaving presented itself One
morning, before daybreak, Mme. L'Estrange dis-
guised herself as a very poor woman seeking to
go beyond the walls to glean food from the over-
laden market-wagons coming in. She carried her
sleeping child in her arms. Her twin sister, dressed
in all respects precisely like herself, followed at a
safe distance. Arrived at the city gate, the mother
begged to be allowed to take her child with her,
but was not permitted ; and it was only by address-
ing the sentry in his native patois of the Orleans
country that he was induced to let the mother her-
self pass out, while he retained the child as a hos-
tage for her return. Two hours later, while the

'35

awakened child was crying lustily, and the half-
distracted sentry was busily looking for contraband
goods in the market-wagons of the peasants, the
- aunt suddenly appeared, as if she had come in with
the wagons, and claimed the child, which was gladly
yielded to the supposed mother. Not for many
years after did the true mother again see her child ;
but when he was grown he came to America, and
married here. He it was who related the story to
his son, the father of my mother's mother.

During several weeks after Mme. L'Estrange
had escaped from Paris her adventures were many.
When she finally reached the coast, it was only to
find that her husband had been obliged to ily some
time before. Her voyage to England was made
inside of one of the very large casks in which the
common kinds of wine were shipped to the whole-
sale dealers in London. In similar casks more
than sixty persons are said to have been shipped,
at the same time, in the hold of the same small
trading-vessel, whose English captain was liberally
paid for running the risks attending such ship-
ments.

During several years there were many hundreds,
if not thousands, of escapes made in the same man-
ner ; and who can now imagine the horrors of such
a voyage? The trip across the English Channel
is not very welcome to the majority of travelers
ttxlay, when not more than two or three hours are
required, in vessels which, though bad enough

136

according to our present standards, are princely
compared with those of two centuries ago. In
those days it frequently took a weet to cross, and
sometimes as long a time, or longer, was spent
rocking at anchor, waiting for a favorable wind.
Of course, the casks holding human freight were
not hoisted on board until the latest moment;
but whether waiting on shore in momentary peril
of detection, or confined in casks on board ship,
what an eternity must every hour have seemed I

With a small store of wine in a leather bottle,
and some bread, a pillow or two, and such cloth-
ing as might be conveniently packed in with her,
the wretched refugee was placed in the great cask,
into the sides of which many small holes had been
bored to admit air without attracting notice. The
head of the cask was then secured in its place, and
— carefully right side up — it was placed in the
hold, where it was skilfully braced to prevent its
being rolled about when-the vessel was under way.
My mother had seen, in the possession of one of
her mother's brothers, a small pillow, filled with
softly carded rolls of wool, covered with a stained
and feded slip of brocaded silk, which was sacredly
treasured because it had eased the buffeted head
of the revered great-grandmother, when she was
tossed about in her narrow prison in the hold of
the blockade-running vessel on the uneasy waves
of the English Channel.

Their "Red Sea "the refugees were wont to call

137

this Channel, though they certainly did not cross it
in the triumphant fashionof the hosts whom Moses
led irom twndage to freedom. Some of the " cask
refugees" were found suffocated when their "arks
of refuge " were unheaded. Many more were se-
riously injured. The only wonder is that such great
numbers were taken from the French coast in this
way, and that so many escaped without more than
temporary injuries, before the persecuting authori-
ties had discovered and put a stop to similar ship-
ments. More fortunate than those who had to
cross the Channel were those who, like the ances-
tors of my mother's father, Bolden (or Bauldoin)
by name, were able to cross the frontiers into the
Low Countries. They had trials enough and hair-
breadth escapes by dozens, but their bodily suffer-
ings were much less.

For the first few years after their escape M.
and Mme. L'Estrange fared comparatively well in
England, because the friends of the former had
procured for him a lieutenancy in the Royal Guard
of James II. But this monarch was not himself a
Protestant, and not too well disposed toward the
Huguenots, though state policy forced him to
receive them well. It was probably for this rea-
son that Lieutenant L'Estrange, a few months
before James was forced to fly from his throne,
sold his commission, and, with the proceeds of this
sale and that of some jewels, came, with his wife, to
this country. Here he soon joined the settlement

■38

at New Rochelle, and there and in New York city
for many years he taught his own language to
those Americans who wished to learn it, as well as
gave instruction in the classical languages to boys
who wished to enter Yale or Columbia (then
King's) College.

At the same time, his wife, and later on their
daughters, all of" whom were bom here, applied
themselves to the new duties imposed by the new
circumstances, in the cheerful spirit common to all
persons who lead lives of &ith and kindliness.

CHAPTER VIII

HUGUENOT HOMES IN NEW ROCHELLE

CHAPTER VIII.

HUGUENOT HOMES IN
NEW ROCHELLE.

Life less Toilsome than
withMost of the Colonists.

Attachment to the
Services of their Church,
Refugees not Colonists.
Loyalty to the Land of

their Adoption.

Little Daintinesses of

House Furnishing.

"'^'oO*

^CjoC*/?^'^"^ life in the Huguenot house-
l^ w^ IJ^ holds was probably less toilsome
I ] ^^^^ ''I almost any others in the
O O colonies. The refugees were too

^^J^^^^ intelligent, industrious, and re-
sourceful not to be able to escape many of the
hardships of the very poor among the other colo.
nists ; and they were too poor to be oppressed by
the multitude of anxieties and responsibilities
inevitable to the rich citizens who then had to
superintend the exercise of all sorts of labors under
their roof-trees.

All of the very poor colonists must have had
certain hardships to endure ; but help of every sort
was scarce, and sober and industrious persons were
always sure of constant employment, while their
tasks, like their lives, were of the simplest. At
the same time, the home of every wealthy family
was an industrial center. Thus there were no
drones in either the richest or the poorest hives.
The Huguenots, belonging to neither class, were
in a sense cooperative. Neither the privations of
the poor nor the multiplied cares of the rich fell

'42

upon any with excessive weight; hence, notwith-
standing the varying grades of original social posi-
tion and culture, there was a great equality of
living and enjoyment among them.

It was twenty years after the first Huguenots
came to New Rochelle before the refugees could
spare the money to build a church or support a
pastor. The nearest place where religious services
were held in their own tongue was New York
city, twenty miles away ; therefore, on every Sun-
day during the year, in fair weather or in foul, all
who were able to do so started very early in the
morning, that they might not miss the opening
prayer at 10.30 a.m. There were few horses
owned among the refugees, and fewer vehicles
of any kind. Such of both as they possessed were
devoted exclusively to the use of those who were
not strong enough to walk.

Many persons now living may still remember
Miss Isabella Donaldson, lately of Barrytown,
New York, as a person greatly interested in reli-
gious matters. She kept a scrap-book composed
of original communications concerning the hard-
ships and trials of those who had come to this
country under stress of persecution. In this book
was a copy of a letter which was written about
1704 or 1705. I give this letter as I copied it in
i860 from Miss Donaldson's scrap-book :

" Every week I see the Huguenots pass the
house in troops on their way to their church in the

'44

not always, even now, include comforts, and at that
time scant enough were what we now deem the
most elementary comforts of life, even in the
palace of the "Sun King" himself In this coun-
try the French settlers, though originally among
the poorest, speedily became distinguished by the
amount of comforts, and even of luxuries, as these
were then esteemed, which they gathered around
them.

The homes of the earlier Huguenot settlers
were, if one may judge by the two specimens
which remain in New Rochclle, neither large nor
fine ; but they were substantial, and as comfortable
as was possible under the conditions of the time.
None in our country, save the femilies of high
colonial officials, and a few of the very wealthiest
of the colonists, possessed more of essential com-
forts than the French settlers at a comparatively
early date were able to gather around themselves
by dint of the industry, skill, and taste character-
istic of their nation. There is a tradition that the
first to utilize the remnants of worn-out garments
by cutting them into strips and weaving them into
floor-coverings were the French refugees. The
rag carpet, as still sometimes seen, is by no means
a thing of beauty, but in the days when the King
of England himself did not always have a rug on
which to rest his royal bare feet when stepping
out from his lofty bed upon his chill and pol-
ished floor, the humble rag carpet would not have

'45

been esteemed an object of contempt even by his
Majesty.

Among the earliest importations of the French
settlers were spinning-wheels and looms of better
quality than were previously known here. Im-
migrants from fruit-growing and wine-making
districts of France brought grafts and roots, and
succeeded in naturalizing most of the hardier va-
rieties. A few were able to import hangings, mir-
rors, china, and furniture of rare beauty; but in
general they possessed only those articles which
could be manufactured here. However humble
these might be in themselves, they would surely
be made decorative by little touches which only
the French hand could give.

Homespun linen yam of heavy quality was by
the Dutch and English colonists dyed and then
woven into stripes and checks of varying degrees
of ugliness for bed- and window-curtains. The
French settlers used for the same purpose either
purely white linen of that which had but one
color. The preferred shades seem to have been a
light blue, a sort of dusky green, and a subdued
gold-color made by dyes of which they brought
the secret with them. These linens, when made
into hangings bordered by an embroidered vine or
arabesque design in white upon the gold, or in gold
and white upon the blue, or of varied colors upon
the all white, were delicately beautiful, and became
heirlooms in many a hmiVy, including that of my

146

mother's mother. When this £ishion was imitated
by their Dutch or English neighbors, the "em-
broiderments " grew heavier, and, instead of being
confined to simple designs, frequently became
perspcctivelcss " landscapes with figures," wherein
the yellow-iaced shepherdess, clad in red apd
green, was taller than the stiflf blue^ecn trees,
and her black-and-white sheep were as tall as
herself

The bedroom of my mother's grandmother
L'E^trange has often been described to me. The
floor was painted as nearly as possible to match
the subdued gold of the linen hangings. The
ceilings and side walls were whitewashed with
lime. The windows and dressing-tables were
hung with tastefully arranged draperies, bordered
with a grape-vine pattern embroidered in white,
and further trimmed at the edge with a knitted
fringe of white linen yam.

The tall four-posted bedstead of carved mahog-
any was provided with a tester, with long draw-
curtains, over which valances about two feet and
a few inches deep, and cut into deep scallops on
the lower edge, hung in a full ruffle from the cor-
nice. Foot-curtains and all were of the same
linen, all embroidered and edged with fringe in
the same manner. Over the high and downy bed
lay a fringed and embroidered coverlet of the
same linen, only that in this case the vine was em-
broidered over the center part as well as the bor-

■47

der. An immense stuffed chair, running easily on
wooden globes the size of billiard-balls, which
were the precursors of the modern caster, had a
very high back and side wings, against which the
head might rest. Such chairs were really comfor-
table, and some may still be found. This one had
a neatly fitted slip-cover to match the draperies of
the room.

The linen yam for the draperies of this room
was all said to have been spun by the first Mme.
L'E^trange and her daughters, and it was afterward
woven under their direction and embroidered by
themselves. Until a comparatively late date there
still existed other bits of their handicraft, in the
shape of fans of peacock feathers, and humbler
ones of goose and turkey feathers — these last deco-
rated with painted flowers. There were also some
hand-screens made by covering small hoops with
tightly drawn slips of white silk, the joinings hid-
den by narrow fringe. One screen was embroi-
dered with colored silks, others were daintily painted,
and all were supplied with handles of carved or
smoothly turned and polished wood. When a
child I saw one of the peacock-feather fans (un-
fortunately, moth-eaten), and a pair of the prettily
painted hand-screens. The latter were used to
hold between the face and the blaze of the open
wood fires, which, genial and delightful as they are,
have a disagreeable way of scorching one's face
and eyes.

148

Very graceful and delicately executed embroi-
deries upon the daintiest of muslins are still shown
which were made by members of this family, but
possibly by those of a later generation. They are
evidently from French .designs. In the court of
Lx>uis XIV lace-malting was an art cultivated
almost as assiduously as that of embroidery. My
sister and I now have a few yards of two patterns
of lace made by Mme. L'Estrange, which hap-
pened to be trimming some part of her under-dress
at the time of her escape from Paris. She taught
the secret of its manu&cture to her daughters, and
for three generations her descendants made similar
lace, though none was as filmy as that wrought in
the boudoirs of Versailles, because it was impossi-
ble to get threads sufficiently fine.

The cultivated taste and the dainty arts brought
from France made the homes of the Huguenots
much more attractive in appearance than those of
other colonists, even though the latter might be
possessed of far greater wealth ; and the same dif-
ference was manifest in their dress. The latter was
certainly no more costly than that of most of those
who had filled similar social positions in their re-
spective mother-lands ; but the Frenchwoman's
fine eye for color, and her delicate skill with brush,
needle, and bobbin, united to produce more attrac-
tive results. Similar touches of taste and skill ap-
peared everywhere, and gave distinction to all the
Huguenot homes, whatever may have been the

'49

owner's social standing in the mother-land. As
neat as their Dutch neighbors, they devised labor-
saving methods to maintain perfect cleanliness
■without being slaves to it. As liberal as the
^English, they were far more economical, and by
their skill in cooking they succeeded in rendering
palatable and digestible even the coarsest fere.
Their skill in preparing rich dishes, sweet cakes,
and preserves was not equal to that of the Dutch
huysvrouws, and they could not compare with the
English in roasts and pastries ; but in wholesome
dishes for daily consumption they far exceeded
both, and particularly in bread-making. It is tra-
ditionally related that the French were the first to
introduce the use of yeast in this country, the
larger part of all the colonists at that time, and
the Dutch for more than a century later, continu-
ing to use leaven.

Perhaps the most keenly felt of the material
hardships which the French refugees had to meet
were caused by our stem winters and fierce sum-
mers, and the learning to subsist on the coarser
meats and vegetables which formed so large a por-
tion of the fare of the English and Dutch colo-
nists. Very soon, however, the refugees taught
themselves to resist or endure the extremes of the
climate, and, with their readiness of adaptation, they
learned to prepare even the coarsest foods with a
culinary skill which puzzled while it pleased their
new-made friends. It is a little curious to note

how long it iras beibre the delicately flavored
soups, the light omelets, and the delicious entrees,
common to all Huguenot households, came to be
adopted br even those who were the loudest in
praise ot' these delicacies as made by the French
ladies. Some special tbnns ot buns and rolls ex-
cepted, vcf}- tew ot* the distinctively French dishes
appear to have been used in £imilies not of French
descent, prior to our Revolutionary War.

Notwithstanding all the invincible ligfat-hearted-
ness of his nation, the lot of the Huguenot must
be telt to have been sad and lonely. The Puritan
was an emigrant tiom his nadvc land for con-
science' sake, it is true, but his conscience was
set upon political as well as religious rights. He
came here of his own accord, that he might have
freedom to worship God and govern himself (and
others I) as he thought fit. The Dutchman, hav-
ing achieved moral and political liberty for his
hardly won and overcrowded dike-lands, did not
feel that he was expatriating himself when he sailed
for the New Nctheriands, but rather that he was
enlarging the Dutch domains. Even after he had
fallen under English rule he did not greatly repine.

The Huguenot, on the contrary, was not a colo-
nist, but a refugee. In all the world there is not
a more truly patriotic nation than the French.
They love their people and their homes, their cus-
toms, and their country's very soil with a passion-
ate devotion. The Huguenot was no exceprion

^5^

to the rule. For the privilege of continuing within
the beloved borders of France he had gradually
sacrificed his every political and almost all of his
civil rights. Not until the only alternatives left
were the denial of his religious faith, death, or
flight, did he resort to the latter. Then he felt
himself, not a voluntary emigrant from his native
land, but an exile, an outcast; and his feeling
toward the government which had sent him so
harshly forth was of the bitterest description.
This was shown in many ways. The French
Canadian, a voluntary colonist, retains his language
even to-day, though long cheerfully submissive to
an alien rule. The Huguenot refugee ceased to
speak his own language as speedily as possible.
My grandmother and her many brothers and sisters
were only the fourth generation in this country.
As their own grandfather had been left behind in
France and educated there, they might well be
counted as the third generation here. Yet, with the
exception of some of Marot's psalms, two or three
childish rhymes, a proverb or two, and a few
chance expressions, their speech betrayed no traces
of their national origin. Though their great-grand-
father, the refugee, taught his own language for
several years, the household use of his beautiful
mother-tongue was distinctly discouraged by him.
To the land of their adoption the Huguenots
transferred to the full all the inborn loyalty of their
characters. During Great Britain's long wars with

152

France — 1 744 to 1 763 — the descendants of the
Huguenots, whether in England or the colonies,
bore their part in continental or provincial armies,
doing valiant and often highly distinguished ser-
vice in both. Many of the best Huguenot families
in New Rochelle and Rye sent representatives to
fight the French and Indians. Among them were
my mother's grandfather and his brother. The
first was also, when the time came, an oflBcer in our
Revolutionary army.

CHAPTER IX

HUGUENOT WAYS IN AMERICA

CHAPTER IX.

HUGUENOT WAYS IN
AMERICA.

Alttrations in Names.

, Resentment toward their ;

Native Land.

Differences between

French and English

Calvinisis.

Schools Established by ,

the Huguenots. j

Amusements, and Games '

of Courtesy.

"IHE utter abandonmetit by the ex-

Tj / patriated Huguenots of all con-
yi nection with France is shown in
-* ^ nothing more clearly than in the
change of both christened names
and surnames. Henri and Pierre, Jeanne and Mar-
guerite, became Anglicized almost immediately,
and, it must be confessed, not to their betterment.
The spelling of surnames was apt to follow the
pronunciation of their new friends and neighbors.
Even when the spelling was retained the sound
often became hopelessly altered. De ia Vergne,
though retaining the accepted spelling, was soon
written as one word, and pronounced (think of it I)
Dillyvaije. Often the spelling also was changed
beyond recognition. Bonne Passe (Good Thrust;
in the days when good swordsmen were valued
this was a name of honor) first became shortened
to Bon Pas, and then changed to Bunpas, followed
by Bumpus and finally contracted to Bump!
L'Estrange was first known as Streing, then as
Strange, afterward as Strang, and even, in a few
cases, was changed to Strong.

■56

In writing the name of this last-named £unily I
have followed die usage of at least some of its cap
lier members in this country, as well as a wide-
spread belief among them all in its cwrect n css. It
is a hmiiy tnulition that when the young Daniel
— afterward the rciugce — was sent to Switzer^
land to enter the academy there as a student of
philosophy, July 29, 1672, his surname was pur-
posely misspelled as Stieing to avoid ^ving a clue
by which his lather's persecutors might discover
whither the son had been sent; and that aitcrward,
upon the young student's return to France, and
during his stay there as a member of the Royal
Guard, he had resumed his rightful name. But
later, when he was obliged either to abandon his
principles or to fly for his life, he thought it wise
to again adopt the name of Streing for the sake of
members of his family still residing in France; for,
as is well known, the spies of Louis XIV were
almost as active in London as in Paris, and though
the refugees there could not themselves be reached
by the laws of France, the tyrant's wrath at tReir
immunity was often visited upon their relatives
stiii unable to escape from his clutches. The
change of name was considered of enough impor-
tance to be kept up even in this country until
after the arrival here of the oldest son, whom his
heartbroken mother, as before related, had been
obliged to abandon at the gate of Parts. The son
did not come over until he was twenty-one or

^57

twenty-two years of age. By this time the habit
of the name had become fixed. This son seems to
have retained his name as L'Estrange, and some
of the others also used it, at short and irregular
periods. Both L'Estrange and Streing appear
to be names belonging to the numerous ranks of
the petty gentry.

Among the reminders of their native land to
which the refiigees clung the longest was the ver-
sion of the psalms of David by Marot — that version
so hated by the persecutors that every copy dis-
covered by them was immediately treated with as
much animosity as was the Bible itself. Even
after the descendants of the refugees had so far
forgotten their ancestral tongue that they preferred
to read the Bible in English, they yet sang, to the
old melodies which had so often thrilled their
fathers' souls, the beloved psalms which were still
cheering the hearts of their persecuted brethren
hiding in the caverns of the Cevennes, where alone
the remnant remaining in France could worship as
conscience dictated.

I would give much if I could now recall the air
to which my mother's mother and one of her sisters,
both of them considerably over seventy years of
age at the time, tremulously sang the psalm in
which occur the words :

" Quiconque espere au Dieu vivant.
Jamais ne perira!"

But both the air and the rest of the words have
escaped my recollection. What has not forsaken
me is the memory of two petite but still remarkably
handsome women, one of them very erect, the other
a good deal bent, but both still vigorous of mind
and body, as, in the late twilight of a summer Sun-
day evening, they sat together in a shadowy room
and crooned the old sacred song with a strong and
faith-inspired emphasis on jamais^ stopping in a
startled, halt-ashamed way as soon as they discovered
" Little Pitchers " trying to efface herself in a dark
comer, because she well knew that the entertain-
ment would end as soon as her presence should be
known.

So far did some of the Huguenots carry their
resentment to the government which had so unjustly
expelled them that they did not like to be reminded
of the land from which they came. It is told of
one who lived for many years in Charleston, South
Carolina, that while he never thoroughly mastered
the English language, he would speak only in that
tongue even within his own family circle. He had
his name translated into its English equivalent, and
though his accent invariably betrayed him as not
of American or English birth, it was not definitely
known by his neighbors that he was born in France
until a short time before his death, when it became
necessary to declare his nativity in order that he
might obtain possession of some property willed to
him by a relative in Burgundy.

Probably tew ot the rctugccs went quite as ilir
as this, but certainly for many years their descen-
dants, while rejoicing in the name of Huguenot,
seemed to resent being called French. I remem-
ber that for some time my own grandmother (of
rhe fourth generation in this country) opposed her
grandchildren's study of the French language.
One day I said to her, "But, grandmother, your
own ancestors were from France, so the language
is partly our own, and why should we not study it?"
Her large and brilliant black eyes flashed at me
over the tops of her spectacle-bows as she replied :
** Yes, they came from France. They did not re-
main there. France is now the home only of per-
secutors and atheists." And I fear that she was
never able to believe that any one who could not
be properly classed as either the one or the other
could continue to exist in the country which had
so pitilessly cast forth its most loving children.

This trace of resentment seems to have been the
only somber characteristic of the Huguenots and
their descendants in this country; and even this
had its good side, for it led to their more ready
adoption of the ideas and institutions of the new
land which welcomed so warmly and so helpfully
those who had " endured hardness " for the sake of
their common faith.

Doctrinally, the Huguenots and the Puritans
were the same. In practice there were many points
of difference. The Puritan was a very strict Sab-

i6o

brsriir, beg==r=g i: sorsccaf Satnnbjr a twenty-
Kxzr bcKirs oc abGCiackse 6010 anj avoidable
work, z£ vtU £ rocn anr [deasaic save that which
his i:«voti:=ies£ norad in religious servicer. The
H'^z-t^x^r, S.;3daT begin and eixlcd as now. Like
C^vi:: h:::ii<l£ nx J ciugttJ did not think it cssen-
rlil £o i\iKd all pleasant ditngs on Sunday more
ziu:! oz. o:iter diji. and all vbo had iricnds living
near the v^p:ie jcopped in n> ^"isit tbcm as thcj
returned thxn church, tor the Sunday time that
wii ax devoted n> churdi services and to an hour
of catech-zing at hocnc was not considered as ill
spent in cheerTul social intercourse.

In Cjlviniftic Switzerland it had been customary
to indulge — alter church hours — in any form of
innocent amusement. The Huguenots seem to
have drawn the line just short of this. But on
week-days their national light-beartedncss was
bound to di^pby irself in as many wa}'s as their
circumstances would permic Tableaux and little
comedies were irequent, while dancing was the
expected amusement in most households at every
evening gathering, and these took place as often as
possible. Children were instructed with a degree
of gentleness and consideration quite in contrast
with the sterner ways of their coreligionists of
English or even of Dutch descent

Cheerfulness, even gaiet)', was the rule. A
gloomy Huguenot was an anomaly to be pitied
and apologized for by his compeers only on the

i6i

ground of exceptional misfortunes. Yet, when
one considers the horrible oppressions which they
and their ancestors had endured without relief for
almost a hundred years after the end of the tem-
porary respite granted by the Ekiict of Nantes, one
must wonder at, while forced to admire, their
happy dispositions.

The "boarding and day schools for young
ladies " which were established in New Rochelle
were eagerly hailed by the elder English and
Dutch colonists. Hitherto their daughters had
had few educational advantages. The sons could
have private tutors or attend fairly good prepara-
tory schools which fitted pupils for the colleges
so early established in the colonies; or — if his
parents were among the magnates of the land —
an especially fortunate youth might be sent to one
of the great English universities. In general, the
girls had to be content with the crumbs of know-
ledge which dropped from their brothers' not over-
supplied tables, though, in some rare instances,
governesses were brought from over sea for their
benefit. So when these French Protestant schools
were opened by those who had enjoyed every then
prized advantage of social culture, they were well
patronized from the start.

In these schools were taught not only the lan-
guage of the " politest of the nations," — to employ
the words of Lord Chesterfield, written half a cen-
tury later, — but also all the ** ladylike accomplish-

l62

ments" of die period. English tcacheis were
engaged to instruct in the grammatical use o£ their
own tongue, both written and spoken ; but it naj
be inugined that this was not con»dercd of nearly
as high importance as the more showy accomplish-
ments, which could be acquired at these schools
only. Enough of music to enable a young woman
to play a little for dancing (although the fiddle of
some dance-inspired old Aftican was usually pre-
ferred by the dancers), or to warble a few songs in
her (presumably) fresh, sweet tones to the accom-
paniment of the probably thready or wheezy
spinet ; enough of French to enable her to read it
easily, write it fairly well, and hold a not too mono*
syllabic conversation in that language, were cer-
tainly considered as very desirable accomplishments.
A still more serious business seems to have been
" Instruction in the Arts." A few of the flower-
pieces which were painted from nature in water-
colors by some of the pupils of these schools are
still preserved and are really beautiful. When on
a visit to Nova Scotia some years ago, I saw sev-
eral which had been taken there by some of the
Royalist families exiled from here in 1783. They
bore the inscription, "Eleanora Morris, Pension de
Demoiselles de Madame De la Vergne, La Nouvelle
Rochelle, Province de New York, 1736." The
few still surviving landscapes which I have seen
were stiff things not evincing much of talent on
the part of the pupil, or skill on that ctf the in-

^63

structor. The embroideries, as might be expected,
were especially good. Occasionally a fine piece
of Rochelle tapestry or bed-hanging may yet be
found in the possession of fortunate descendants
of some who once were New Rochelle pupils, and
so may many specimens of exquisite embroideries
on the most delicate of muslins, as well as rem-
nants of laces which are known to be the handi-
work of some of Mme. De la Plaine's or Mmc.
De la Mater's pupils.

But probably even more than all of these accom-
plishments, the principal thing desired for their
daughters by the parents was instruction in "gentle
manners " — the manners not only of persons who
were of gentle birth, but who also had been so
early taught by precept and example that their
graces seem to have been born with them, a part
of their very selves. The pupils were taught how
to avoid all awkwardness of movement or carriage;
how to bear themselves gracefully erect; how to
enter a drawing-room with a grave and gracious
inclination, seeming to include all who are present
while addressed only to the hostess, and to leave it
without turning the back, as one retires from the
presence of royalty; how to graduate their greet-
ings from the pleasant deference due to elders or
social superiors to the sweetest condescension to-
ward their juniors or social inferiors; how first to
arrange, and afterward how to preside at, a hand-
somely spread dinner-table with dainty elegance

164

and efficiency; and also how to dress themselves
with taste and effect in the ^hion of the day.
Dancing was a matter of first importance. The
" stately steppings " of the courtly dances of the
period cost time, thought, and much careful teach-
ing on the one side, and submissive labor on the
other, before any pupil could be considered as a
perfected scholar. Incidentally with all these
things, a great deal of valuable instruction was
given in the finer graces of courteous speech, and
all that gentle consideration for others which is at
once the flower and the root of good breeding.

From the first, the Huguenots, of whatever de-
gree, seemed to have endeavored to transmit to
their children the traditions of politeness which
they had brought with them from France. For a
long time — perhaps even yet it may be the case
in some families of this descent — the children
were taught some of the details of good manners
by little games. These may have been invented
in this country to supply a lack of more regular
instruction, or they may have been simply adapta-
tions of similar games once played in the motherland.

The only one of these jeux de courtoisie of
which I have retained any distinct recollection
conveyed instruction in the arts of courtesying and
bowing, and was also a lesson in propriety. It
was called " La Loi des Baisers." In this game
only girls were allowed to play, One of them
stood in the center of a room, and round her passed

'65

a decorous procession of little women, each one
of whom bowed or courtesied low before the gra-
cious " reigning lady," kissing her extended hand
and chanting :

" La main ! La main, Jolie ! Petite !
Pour les amis. Pour les amis."

To each the small lady in the center courtesied
with more or less of grace, and responded, the
fi'iends in this case being supposed to be of the
opposite sex :

*' Merci, merci ; mes bons amis."

At the next round the " reigning lady " pre-
sented her brow to be kissed by all in turn, while
the chant now ran:

" Le front I I-e front ! Le noble front !
Four les peres, et les freres."

To this the response was a lower courtesy and
the words ;

" Mon cher papa ! Mes freres cheris."

At the third turn of the procession the small
lady presented both her hands and her cheeks,
while the chanted words were :

" La joue I La joue ! La rougeante joue !
Pour les deuces soeurs, ct les meres."

i66

In this the kissing was mutual, and on botl
cheeks, without further words. At the fourti
round the "reigning lady" was seated, demurel;
placing one small finger on her archly pouting lips
while the others passed by, each with half-avertei
face and one hand raised as if prohibiting a neare
approach, while chanting :

" La bouche I La bouche, si ravissante I
Pour les maris I Mais seulement Ics maris ! "

The rounds generally continued until each littli
girl had played the part of the reigning lady.

It was a very old lady who taught this littlt
game and its chanted words to several of us, litth
girls of ages varying from five or six to eight o;
ten years. At first we learned the words by rot*
only, just as generations of children have leamcc
"Hickory, dickory, dock," but later on we grew
to know the meaning, whether by the interpreta
tion of older girls or not I do not now remember.

If any living descendants of Huguenots ir
America retain traces of others of these jeax di
coarloisie, they should not fail to see that suet
traces are recorded. Too precious to be allowec
j to fede entirely away are these faint remains of th«

( efforts made by the Huguenots to retain for theii

children, in the midst of the wilderness which hat:
welcomed them, the graces and proprieties which
had been birthrights in their old homes.

CHAPTER X

A COLONIAL WEDDING

Gallup and Chesebrough.
Rev, William Worthing-
ton of Saybrook, Con-
necticut
Wedding Customs.
Quality and Commonalty,
The Uninvited Guests.
A Valiant Supper.

^HE year was 1726. The bride-

Tr^ groom was the Rev. William
^ Worthington, then pastor of the
™^ church at Saybrook, Connecticut
The bride was a former parishioner
in the town of Stonington, Connecticut, by name
Temperance, daughter of William Gallup and his
wife Sarah (Chesebrough), and granddaughter of
Captain John Gallup and his wife Hannah (Lake),
of whose " pioneer home " we have already read.
As known to all readers of colonial history, this
Captain John Gallup, the second of his name, had
been a man of much influence with the Mohegans,
or friendly Indians, many of whom had followed
his leadership in the Great Swamp Fight of 1675,
in which he bravely fell at the head of his com-
pany. To his son, William Gallup, the Mohe-
gans had transferred the allegiance they had given
his father, and, in his turn, he continued to exercise
over and for them the same sort of fatherly guar-
dianship which they had received from Captain
Gallup. A knowledge of this feet is essential
to the comprehension of an incident of the wed-
ding of Mr. William Gallup's daughter.
.69

This femily was among the most prominent and
highly connected in what is now known as New
London County, Connecticut, and in the theocrati-
cal regime of New England the minister always
held the first rank by right of his office, as well as
by the gentle birth and breeding which were
usually his. For both reasons all the neighbor-
ing " people of quality " were naturally among
the invited guests. The pastor, being in spirit
as well as in name the fether of his flock, could
not allow any member of his late parish to be
overiooked, though it probably embraced every
soul in the township. To be both just and gener-
ous to all, it was decided to make a wedding-feast
of two days' duration, and invite the guests in
relays, " according to age, list and quality," in the
same way that sittings were then assigned in many,
if not all, of the " meeting-houses " of New Eng-
land.

The first day of the feast was that on which the
marriage ceremony was performed by the bride-
groom's personal friend, the Rev. Ebenezer Rossi-
ler, and not by a civil magistrate, as was the
early custom in all the Puritan colonies. It is
almost certain that there was no wedding-ring.
Even as late as half a century ago these were
rarely used by descendants of the Puritans.
There were present on this day only the relatives
and intimate friends of the contracting parties. As
the bridegroom was a minister, no doubt all the

^7'

neighboring clergy, and as many of their families
as could come, were numbered among the friends
on this day. So, also, were several of the highest
colonial dignitaries, as appears by the time-stained
chronicle, written nearly fifty years later, from the
relations of her grandmother, the bride of that day,
by Juliana Smith, a granddaughter of the Rev. and
Mrs. William Worthington.

For the first day's feast long tables were spread
with much profusion, and with what to modem
eyes would seem like confusion as well. Soups
were then rarely, if ever, served on occasions of
ceremony, and all meats, fish, side-dishes, and vege-
tables were placed on the table at the same time,
and served without change of plates. It was con.
sidered an "innovarion" at this wedding-dinner
that " coffee, pies, puddings and sweetmeats
formed a second course."

The guests were seated with great regard to pre-
cedence. Probably there were not many chairs,
for even in England "settles and forms" con-
tinued to be more commonly used than chairs in
the best country houses at least as late as 1750.
Such as there were — and probably every good
neighbor contributed such as he possessed for this
occasion — were carefully reserved for " the most
infirm and the greatest dignitaries,"

" Immediately after the asking of the blessing
by the oldest minister present, tankards filled with
spiced hard cider were passed from hand to hand

^7^

down the table, each person filling his own mug
or tumbler." A punch-bowl is not mentioned in
this chronicle as having formed a part of the table
furniture, and as it is expressly mentioned that the
drinks were poured from the tankards into mugs
or tumblers, it is probable that the custom, men-
tioned by Mrs. E^rle in her *' Customs of Colonial
Life," of passing the punch-bowl from hand to
hand for each person to drink from, had already
become obsolete; indeed, it is not certain that
such a custom was ever habitual among the bet-
ter sort of colonists. Tankards were undoubt-
edly so passed, not only here but in the rural
districts of England, as late as " in the days of
good Queen Anne."

A very few of the tankards and mugs at this wed-
ding may have been of silver or of glass, and still
fewer of delft or of china, but where there were so
many the greater part must have been of pewter,
horn, or wood. Of these articles, as well of the
chairs, it is likely that all the well-to-do neighbors
contributed the best of such as they possessed, this
generous sort of neigh borliness being a character-
istic of the time and of all new settlements. Arti- ■
cles of silver were not as plentiful in New England
as in the other colonies, but by this date nearly all
families of distinction possessed a few, and in spite
of the natural losses by fire and other calamities,
there are still existing some relics which orna-
mented this long-ago wedding-dinner.

)

'73

A curious dish, which may possibly, even proba-
bly, have been used on that day, is still in posses-
sion of a member of the family connection, a de-
scendant of the Chesebroughs. This dish is here
described in the hope that some one may be able
to determine what use it was originally intended to
serve. It is circular, about nine or ten inches in
diameter, perhaps three inches deep, standing upon
a circular base ; it would hold from three to four
pints of liquid, and has a cover. So far there is
nothing to distinguish this piece of very ancient
red, yellow, and blue delft from many another
which we would not hesitate to call a vegetable-dish.
But, perched against one side of its interior, like a
swallow's nest under the eaves, is a pocket-like
thing that would hold three or four tablespoonfuls
of liquid were it not perforated like the strainers
of tea-pots. It has been stated — on what author-
ity I know not — that when tea was first brought
to Holland it was served as a soup. Is it possible
that this queer old side-pocketed dish was made
for the infusion and serving of the new herb?

If there were not enough dishes of the better
sort to accommodate all the guests entitled to
them, preference was always, at such entertain-
ments, given to the older persons present The
juniors would be served on this first day, as all
would be on the next day, with dishes of brightly
polished pewter, or in trenchers of maple, tulip, or
poplar wood, scoured to an almost snowy whiteness.

'74

There would be few spoons of silver, but many
made of pewter or hom; no silver foi^ and
perhaps not an oversupply of steel ones. Among
the relics in the old house at Sharon are still pre-
served half a dozen specimens of an implement
which preceded forks — sharply pointed bits of
steel, about four inches long by an eighth of an
inch in diameter, set into handles of bone. When
I first found them and took them to my grand-
mother with a " What are these ? " she lau^ingly
told me to " guess," I thought they looked more
like ice-picks than anything else, but she assured
me that they were the precursors of forks. They
must have performed their office but " indifferent
well," though, as an improvement upon 6ngers,
some of them may likely enough have been used
on this occasion.

Some of the pewter dishes now cherished by the
descendants of those who, as relatives or friends,
were present at this wedding, are marked with
the owner's initials as carefully as if they were of
silver. Indeed, a full set of pewter tableware was
considered a fine wedding-gift from a fether to his
daughter. A pewter porringer, belonging to the
femily which owns the dish of ancient delft men-
tioned above, is a really pretty thing, graceful in
shape and having a ^ncifully cut flat handle pro-
jecting from its side. It is recorded that in Queen
Elizabeth's time cocoanut-shells were used as
drinking-cups, being polished, and set sometimes

ill

in silver, and sometimes in pewter. In the colo-
nies polished cocoanut-shells were also occasion-
ally used as ladles, having long handles of polished
wood attached to them. At least one such ladle
still exists. It has a prettily fiishioned handle of
maple wood. Its exact age is not known, but it
or its counterpart might well have been used at
this wedding-feast.

On the first day of the feast, besides the prelim-
inary draught of spiced cider, there was brandy for
those who craved it, and much good Burgundy
and Madeira for the more temperately inclined.
Three casks of Madeira (size not mentioned) are
recorded as having been broached on that day.

On the second day the "commonalty" began to
assemble at about nine o'clock in the morning.
(The "quality" on the previous day had waited
until eleven.) The tables were served to succes-
sive guests during the day. Foreseeing the de-
mand, all the good housewives in the vicinity,
with their servants, had been assisting Mrs. Gallup
and her servants in the preparations, and afterward,
with neighborly cooperation, they assisted in the
serving of the stores of good things.

On the first day, " after the removal of the sub-
stantial part of the meal, the ladies left the table,
the table cloths were removed, and various strong
waters, together with pipes and tobacco, were
brought on, in company with trays filled high with
broken blocks of nut-sweet." This last was a highly

■76

prized candy made from maple sugar made soft
with water, placed in a shallow iron pan over the
coals, with a liberal allowance of unsalted butter,
and slightly scorched. While scorching, the
blanched meats of hickory-nuts and 'butternuts,
or sometimes almonds when this foreign dainty
could be procured, were added with a liberal hand.
When cooled this became firm, and was esteemed
" equal to anything in England."

On the second day this regular order of things,
with the customary toast-drinking, was manifestly
impossible. "As each relay of guests left the
tables they passed out of the front door near which
stood an immense Bowl, lotig ago hollowed out by
painstaking Indians from a bowlder, for the grind-
ing of their com. This was filled with Punch
which was ladled out freely to all who presented
anything from which to drink it, while great piles
of powdered Tobacco and a good bed of coals to
furnish light, were free to all who had pipes."
This punch, whatever liquor might have furnished
its body, was sure to have been well seasoned with
the best of West Indian sugar and lemons, for
there was already a brisk trade between the Con-
necticut coast and the West Indies, and at this
time of the year the trading-vessels would have
been coming into the home ports.

This unique punch-bowl held many gallons, and
it speaks well both for the temperance of the
guests and the good quality of the liquor provided.

'77

that "no one became boisterous, though the big
Bowl was kept well and strongly replenished dur-
ing the entire three days of this wedding feast."
For three days there were, though only two have
yet been mentioned here.

Early — very early — on the morning of the
second day, almost before the active men- and
women-servants had opened their eyes upon the
heavy day's work before them, a motley but
grave and decorous procession of apparently in-
terminable length was seen coming over the hill
on the side of which, " overlooking the little
Mystic River, stood the large and, for its time,
the imposing mansion of Mr. Gallup."

For a moment the master stood in blank dis-
may. The descendants of the friendly Mohegans
and a remnant of their Pequod enemies, so nearly
annihilated half a century before, were small in
number when compared with their former strength,
but they were still formidable as wedding-guests.
They had heard that all the country-side had been
invited to partake of Mr. Gallup's hospitality, and
perhaps had imagined that such an invitation must
include themselves. Such a conclusion would
have been natural enough, " considering that he
had always taken them, in a manner, under his pro-
tection, and they had always turned to him for ad-
vice and often for efficient help in time of need."
Or it may have been that some practical joker had
been at the pains to convey this impression, or, as

Mrs. Gallup's great-granddaughter opined, that
" some sUghted suitor had thought thus to cause
annoyance to the bride." Whatever might have
been the cause, the remnants of the tribes had
come in all the security of invited and welcome
guests — brave, squaw, and papoose.

With the prompt decision which characterizes
most successful men, Mr. Gallup sprang upon the
stone horse-block and proceeded to make an im-
promptu speech, " in the picturesque style in which
he was an adept, and with which an Indian audi-
tory was always pleased. He assured 'his chil-
dren ' that they were welcome, very welcome ; but
that they had mistaken the day for which they had
been invited ; that their day was the morrow, and
that then he should set before them the best that
could be had, a feast that should be worthy of them
and of his friendship for them." In the slang of
our own day, this contract was a large one, for the
resources of the neighborhood had been already
heavily drawn upon, and the line of the morrow's
guests "as they wound their way back to their
wigwams in open Indian file, as their native man-
ner was, extended from the Gallup house well on
to the head of the river, a mile or so away from
it."

On the following day the dignified but hungry
host came back again, " beplumed and blanketed
in their best, and none went hungry or thirsty
away."

^79

For various good reasons, including the natural
abjections of a dainty housewife, this multitude
was served out of doors, where immense iron ket-
tles of clam and of fish chowders had been started
to cook, over carefully tended fires, long before day-
light. In other kettles numbers of the wild ducks,
which at that season had begun to be plentiful
along the coast, were slowly stewing with onions.
"Three young hogs, of about one hundred weight
each, were roasted whole, also out of doors. Hang-
ing from the cranes in the great fire-places in the
house were boiling big bags of Indian meal pud-
dings, thickly studded with dried plums." To be
served with the puddings were pailfuls of a sauce
made from West India molasses, butter, and vin-
egar. Great baskets were filled with potatoes that
had been roasted in the ashes, and other baskets
were piled with well-baked loaves of rye and Indian
bread. All of these were dainties which the cop-
per-hued guests could duly appreciate, especially
with the addition of barrelfuls of hard cider and as
much West Indian rum as it was deemed wise to
set before them.

These particulars are all mentioned in the little
diary from which I have culled so much, but, with
the exception of the few things previously quoted,
it says nothing about the viands that were served
on the preceding days. By this period the colo-
nists had acquired the art of cooking to the best ad-
vantage most of the dishes which were peculiar to

irs

180

the country, and the wealthy among them had also
a good many imported dainties.

No amusements in which women took part, save
possibly as spectators, are mentioned, but we are
told that the young men engaged in "rastling,
quoits, running, leaping, archery and firing at a
mark, but on the last day no muskets were ailowcd
by reason of the Indians." Probably the women
were all too much engaged in hospitable cares to
indulge in any of the diversions considered suitable
for them.

No wedding-journey followed the simple cere-
mony. On the afternoon of the first day many of
the invited guests — probably all of them on horse-
back, save a few who may have followed on foot
for a mile or so, for apparently there were no car-
riages then in that region — escorted the newly wed-
ded pair, the bride riding on a pillion behind her
husband, to his house, the parsonage of the West
Parish of Saybrook, Connecticut. Any further
feasting might, even after a ride of twenty-five
miles or more, have seemed superfluous, but a
" valiant supper had been spread " by the care of
Mr. Worthington's parishioners, wishing to extend
a hearty welcome to his bride and the friends who
had accompanied her, and all "were plentifully
regaled with cold meats, roast and stewed oysters,
cakes, comfits, chocolate and coffee."

" After the supper a hymn was sung by all, fol-
lowed by a prayer and benediction. . . . After

which," adds the young chronicler, "the friends
all departed " (probably to the homes of Saybrook
friends hospitably opened to receive them), " and
my Grandfather and Grandmother, left alone to-
gether in their new Home, knelt down and prayed
together for God's blessing."

CHAPTER XI
LIFE ON AN EARLY COLONIAL MANOR

^^QoP^^

CHAPTER XI.

LIFE ON AN EARLY
COLONIAL MANOR.

Terms of Grant. Jt

The First Lady of the
Livingston Manor.

Extent of the Manor.

>0o0o0oC^o0o^C^o^

q ^'QoO'

'QdO

>!^Q^^^^HE holder of an American manor
t^ ^v« sA '" colonial days, though of the
I 6 highest social rank, was by no
VJ yJ means an idle aristocrat living on

^^Jo^^Q an immense estate paying a pro-
portionate revenue. In feet, if one of the wealthi-
est, he was also one of the busiest men of his
generation. Both the conditions of the times and
those upon which the manors were conferred made
this a necessity. The manor granted to Robert
Livingston in l686 was almost, if not quite, as
large as some of the German principalities of those
days, and its possession implied a certain amount
of extraneous wealth on the part of its owner to
enable him to sustain his manorial authority with
the fitting degree of power and prestige ; but it
was no sinecure.

Mr. Livingston's great domain, situated in what
are now Columbia and Dutchess counties. New
York, fronting for twelve miles along the Hud-
son River, and enlarging to the length of twenty
miles on the Massachusetts border, thirty miles or
so back from the river, was still, for the most part,
i8s

a wilderness where Indians hunted the deer, or
sometimes fired the hut and took the scalp of a
too adventurous pioneer.

Robert Livingston was a far-seeing, politic man.
As much as might be, he made friends of the wild
tribes, paying them fairly for their lands, without
regard to the fact that the royal grants were sup-
posed to preclude any such necessity, and himself
learning, and causing his sons to learn, the Indian
tongues, that they might be delivered from the
misunderstandings which were so frequent when
the several parties to any agreement were depen-
dent upon the not always certain loyalty of the
interpreters.

Nothing in North America was then so plenti-
ful as land, and under the conditions imposed by
the royal grants a poor man could not have af-
forded to accept a gift of the lordliest manor of
them all. Within a specified time a certain num-
ber of femilies had to be brought from Europe and
settled upon the granted territory, and their main-
tenance for the first few years assured. It is true
that the settlers thus brought were expected to
pay back at least a part of the first expenditure,
but for the time the outlays were heavy, and com-
paratively few of the settlers made the losses
good.

Farms were leased for long terms, usually for
two lives and a half, a period which at that time
was said to have averaged about fifty years.

In his novel of " Satanstoe," one of the most re-
liable of historical tales, Cooper says : " The first
ten years no rent at all was to be paid ; for the
next ten the land [five hundred acres] was to pay
sixpence currency per acre, the tenant having the
right to cut timber at pleasure ; for the remainder
of the lease sixpence sterling was to be paid for
the land and £4.0 currency or about $100 per
year for the mill site. The mills to be taken by
the landlord, at 'an appraisal made by men,' at
the expiration of the lease ; the tenant to pay taxes."
The mill was evidently to be built by the tenant
"who had the privilege of using, for his dams,
buildings, etc., all the materials that he could find
on the land." To the landlords belonged the duty
of constructing roads and bridges, and of making
all improvements of a public nature. The rents
were usually if not always paid in the produce of
the land, which the manor's lord was obliged to get
to market at his own expense in order to obt^n
the necessary cash for his varied undertakings.
Such an arrangement would certainly seem to have
been very liberal toward the tenant, and was doubt-
less so esteemed at the time, but in after years,
when the descendants of the first tenants had for-
gotten the heavy advances which had been made
by the ancestors of their landlords, and saw how
easily the more recent settlers could make homes
for themselves in the West, they considered them-
selves unjustly treated, and instituted the struggle

i88

for possession which is known to history as the
••anti-rent war."

Of course, nothing of all this was foreseen at the
beginning. The first manor lords undoubtedly
thought that they were here founding immense
holdings after the fashions of the motherland, and
they proceeded in a thoroughly businesslike way
to make all things secure for the prosperity of
their heirs, who, when their time came, did not fail
to appreciate what had been done for them.

Grovemor William Livingston of New Jersey,
writing to his brother, the third lord of the Up-
per Manor, in 1775, remarked: ** Without a large
personal estate and their own uncommon industry
and capacity for business, instead of making out
of their extended tract of land a fortune for their
descendants, our grand-parents and parents would
have left us but a scant maintenance."

In this expression Governor Livingston seems
to have included the manor ladies as well as their
lords, and indeed it is plain that the very desirable
"capacity for business" was equally needed by
both, and the "hand of the diligent that maketh
rich" is not an exclusively masculine possession.

The first lady of the manor of Livingston was
Alida, the daughter of Philip Pieterse Schuyler,
and widow of the Rev. Nicholas Van Rensselaer.
Whatever dower in money or lands she may have
brought to the aid of her astute second husband,
she surely brought one still better in the sturdy

Dutch qualities of fidelity, thrift, and management.
For warmth and strength of family affection, both
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Livingston were long remem-
bered among their descendants. Mrs. Livingston
had come honestly by her executive and adminis-
trative ability. Her father had been a man of
much influence in the colony, and her mother, tiie
Van Slichtenhorst, survived her husband for twenty-
eight years, so managing his large estate, over
which she had full control, as to be reckoned the
foremost woman in a colony which numbered many
women of proved business ability.

The year of this marriage, 1683, was that in
which young Robert Livingston made his first pur-
chase of land from the Indians — a tract of two
thousand acres. Two years later more land was
added by purchase, and still one year later came
the grant from the crown, when the whole was
erected into a lordship or manor, conferring the
" Court-Leet," " Court-Baron," and other rights and
privileges which were for a long time more visible
on the parchments than elsewhere.

On this estate of more than one hundred and
sixty thousand acres,' on the banks of a small but
for a short distance navigable tributary of the Hud-
son, was erected the first Livingston manor-house.
Its last vestige disappeared more than a hundred

ICharln Carroll of CvnillMii, writing in 1776, nyi that Che IJTinpCon
Minor then compnacd ors ]oo,OOa icra. Thii rouiC hiTc included almoM
■ 50,000 icra which had been gndoally added by purchue to cbe originil

»9o

years ago, when the present &mily residence, known
as Oak Hill, was built, a mile or more from the
ancient site.

Of the first house we only know that it was
"thick walled, low browed and heavy raftered," af-
ter the then prevailing Dutch ferm-house type, only
much larger than was usual. We do not know
that it was constructed in any way for defense, al-
though it well might have been. Probably its
builder trusted to keep the peace by his just and
friendly dealings with the Indians, and he may also
have been prepared for defense. He certainly had
good reason to trust somewhat to the number of
retainers gathered around him, a majority of whom,
like all frontiersmen, would pretty surely be well
armed against "big game," which would as surely
include aggressively inclined Indians, if any there
were; but this does not appear. From the rear
of the broad-roofed dwelling stretched away the
quarters of the slaves, the other outbuildings, and
several bams, some of which were larger than the
house itself

There was much building of houses at various
suitable points for the use of the tenant &rmers
and craftsmen brought from Great Britain, Hol-
land, and Germany. To supply the timber for
these dwellings sawmill machinery was imported
and set up on the banks of the streams in the
midst of the forests. Near these mills little settle-
ments grew up with a celerity that was remarkable
for the time, and spoke volumes for the executive

^9'

and administrative ability of the manor's active
lord. In a long, semi-detached wing of the manor-
house carpenters and masons were fed and lodged
during the long winters, while they did such pre-
paratory work as might be possible to forward
building operations in the various settlements in
such moments as the weather would permit. With
the adaptability of all true pioneers, these men
could turn their hands to many things, and they
manufactured in the manor's workshop and smithy
many of the tools which otherwise must Tiave been
imported, as well as much of the rude furniture for
the pioneer houses. Near by was the grist-mill
which supplied flour and Indian meal to all the
near settlements, as well as to many outside the
manor for perhaps thirty miles up and down the
river. On the home ferm hundreds of swine and
beef cattle were raised, slaughtered, and cured to
supply scores of resident families and also for ex-
portation. Here the wool of many hundreds of
sheep was sheared, carded, spun into yarn, and
woven into blankets and cloths to be used for the
manor household and by those of the tenants not
sufficiently " forehanded " to do this work for
themselves.

In one room of the " great house " were held
courts where all the difficulties common to fron-
tier populations were adjusted, and in the same
room were carried on the primitive banking opera-
tions of the newly opened region.

Near by were the docks, whence, when the

river was open, sloops were weekly departing,
laden with salted meats, grains, peltries, and lum-
ber, or returning with cargoes of all the countless
things which could not yet be produced at home.
Among these were many articles of luxury and
rich household furnishings which must have
seemed a trifle incongruous with their new sur-
roundings.

Not far away stood the big " store," where all
sorts of things, from wrought-iron nails to silks,
and from "West Indian sweetmeats" to Dutch
garden seeds, were sometimes sold for money, but
oftener bartered for country produce and peltries,
which would soon find their way to New York,
and some ultimately to England, in ships owned
by the enterprising Robert Livingston.

All these various branches of business implied
the coming and going of many persons, and en-
tailed an open-handed hospitality of the widest
kind. For this the principal care and oversight
fell upon the capable shoulders of Mrs. Livingston.
It is traditionally related that the number of per-
manent dwellers which the manor-house roof shel-
tered during the first twenty years of the eighteenth
century averaged something over thirty persons —
this being exclusive of slaves, of whom there were
more than a hundred having outside quarters, and
of white employees. As strangers were always
welcome, it was the custom to have beds of all sorts
in a state of complete readiness for at least ten

_i93_

unexpected guests, while, at a pinch, a good many
more could be accommodated without great in-
convenience.

Among the dwellers in the manor-house was
always the dominie, who, before the erection of
the manor church in 1721, held services every
winter Sunday in the great kitchen and adjoining
dining-room, and in summer on the threshing-floor
of the biggest bam. On each Sunday he preached
one sermon in Dutch and another in English, and
during the week he acted as tutor for Mr. Living-
ston's children and young relatives, as well as exer-
cised a pastoral care over the members of his
congregation. Other inmates were several more
or less distant relatives of both Mr. and Mrs. Liv-
ingston, all of whom were probably expected to
make themselves more or less useful in one way
or another, for very few drones could have been
tolerated in such an industrious hive.

Robert Livingston was a man of unusual culti-
vation for his time. It is said that he was a good
classical scholar, and there is proof that he spoke
and wrote the English, French, and Dutch lan-
guages with fluency and clearness. Both he and
his wife had bright, quick, active minds, "were
witty and wise," and both were possessed of
much personal grace and charm, so that their
house was regarded as a delightful home where
all other attractions were added to the grace of
hospitality.

Hlife^^H

f '94

The first manor of Livingston, with its many
activities, its profuse hospitalities, and its strong
contrasts, reminds one of Scott's descriptions of
the rude baronial halls in the remote Scotch dis-
tricts a few scores of years earlier than this. In
the new land there was almost as much feudal
authority over more diverse retainers, a greater
display of costly plate, tapestries, and rich furni-
ture, and the same lack of what were even then
considered essential comforts for persons of like
social position in regions less remote.

The wide hall and the long drawing-room of the
big farm-house were wainscoted in panels. The
mantels above the tile-bordered fireplaces were hxi-
cifuUy carved, and the walls were hung with costly
Flemish tapestries; yet it is doubtful if, during
the first three or four decades, any of the floors
were carpeted, while that of the dining-room was
certainly sanded, and a row of sheepskins, dressed
with the wool on, was laid around the table in
winter for foot-warmers. At the same time the
table was laid with the finest naperies and much
solid silver, interspersed with pewter and wooden
dishes. During the earliest years there probably
was not a single fork, and it is almost certain
that there were few if any articles of china, and not
many of earthenware. A dozen silver porringers
bearing the original crest of the Livingstons, show-
ing that they had been brought from Scotland by
the first Robert, and a dozen goblets, or tumblers.

J2L

I am not sure which, bearing the same mark, were
inherited as their share of the original plate, which
was divided by weight, by two of my grandmother's
brothers, who were descendants of the fifth genera-
tion, and who, it is grievous to know, had them
melted to make handsomer but certainly less
precious articles. As these persons were but two
of the scores of Robert Livingston's descendants
among whom his plate had been successively
divided, some idea may be formed of its first
amount.

The life led by Lady Alida Livingston in
her wilderness manor-house was busy, bustling,
dominant Her household was kept well in hand,
and so were her husband's business operations ; not
merely when be was present to guide them with
his own masterful hands, but also during his long
absence at his place in the colonial councils, or on
his several journeys to England. Mrs. Livingston's
femily of six sons and daughters received every at-
tainable advantage both in learning and accom-
plishments. Both she and her husband felt their
responsibility as the founders of a family destined
to honor and power. They gazed fer into the
future and builded wisely, yet they did not dream
of a result to which their labors were tending.

Their descendants of the third and fourth gener-
ation, then grown to be a large, wealthy, keen-wit-
ted, and " clannish clan," were, with very few ex-
ceptions, found among the strongest opponents to

British power during the struggle of the colonics
for independence, though well knowing that with
their success would perish all dreams of the new-
world baronies. The course of the three great
manor families of Van Rensselaer, Van Cortlandt,
and Livingston is alone a sufficient answer to the
calumny that "great estates always made active
Tories."

CHAPTER XII

PROSPEROUS DAYS ON A LATER MANOR

)

■IE period from the founding of the

Tr f first manor in the colony of New
W York to the beginning of the War
•i * of the Revolution was not quite a
century, yet during the last third
of that time home life on all the manors had
greatly changed. What in the later lime was held
to be vast wealth had resulted from the wise plans
and incessant labors of the founders, acting with
the natural growth of the country. To such pleas*
ant features as had existed in the earlier days many
others had been added, while much of that which
was unpleasant had disappeared. For miles along
the eastern bank of the Hudson, above and below
what is now Rhinebeck, almost every sightly
eminence was capped with the fine residence of
one of the grandchildren of the first lord and lady
of the Livingston Manor. At all of these man-
sions cordial hospitality, abundant cheer, and all
of what was then esteemed splendor, were to be
found. There were at this time two Livingston
manors, as a portion of the first (which was subse-
quently called the Upper Manor) had been set off

to the founder's third son Robert as a reward for
peculiarly important services. This segregated
portion was indifferently called the " Lower Manor
of Livingston " or " Clermont " until after the
colonies had become States, when it became
definitely known as Clermont, one of the most
celebrated country-seats in America.

The manor ladies of the third generation and
their successors of the fourth (though the tide of
these last had become one of courtesy only) were
well-nigh queens on their own domains ; but, like
all queens who are not mere figureheads, they had
many cares, which they accepted as frankly as they
did the pleasures of their position.

Notions of political independence had for many
years been growing through all the colonies, but
of social equality there was scarcely a whisper.
Certainly it was fer from the thoughts of those who
had belonged to good femilies in the old countries
and had here been held in honor and had pros-
pered to the extent of founding femilies of wealth.
Perhaps no more frankly fervent aristocrats ever
lived than the owneK of the great colonial estates,
whether these were situated on the banks of the
James and the Chesapeake or on those of the Hud-
son. They were free from most of the restraints
and traditions which often hung like fetters on the
limbs of the kindred class in the motherland, and
thus they were at liberty to enjoy their rank,
wealth, and cultivation with an almost childish

naivete. Of this happy liberty they took the fullest
advantage.

From the extreme limits of Van Rensselaer's
manor on the north to that of the Van Cortlandts
on the south, the eastern bank of the Hudson River
from Albany to New York, and for a distance of
from fifteen to thirty miles back from the river, was
dotted by the handsome residences of as care-free,
healthful, fine-looking, and happy a class as prob-
ably the society of any country has ever known.
Its members were not driven by the fierce compe-
tition which embitters so many lives to-day, yet
they had abundant and satisfying occupations.
They had intermarried so freely that they seemed
one great cousinry, all having a serene confidence
in the invulnerability of their social position, which
left them free to be jovial, hospitable, good-hu-
mored, and withal public-spirited to an unusual de-
gree. The men had their offices, and their business
hours in which to confer with thetr stewards and
tenants, or with the men who conducted large en-
terprises of many sorts upon the strength of their
capital and under their guidance. Into their ca-
pable and willing hands official positions naturally
fell and were faithfully filled ; but all these things
were done in an atmosphere of large leisureliness,
consequent upon the slow means of communica-
tion between distant points, which is almost beyond
the conception of any in these electric days.

The men rode a great deal, or hunted after the

manner of their English cousins, or they made
long expeditions into the unexplored regions of
northern and western New York, partly, no doubt,
with an eye to present profit or to future invest-
ments, but largely to gratify their innate love of
adventure. Many of the sons were sent to the
English universities of Cambridge or Oxford ; but
even if his college training had been received at
King's (now Columbia) College, the education of
no young man belonging to a wealthy and cul-
tivated &mily was considered complete until he
had made a tour of Europe, from one to three
years being frequently consumed in this way.

Probably owing to the many dangers and die
very serious discomforts which then beset an ocean
voyage under the most favorable conditions, the
sisters seldom accompanied their brothers, though
there are a few known instances of daughters who
went to England with their fothers, and there and
in Scotland were most hospitably entertained by
their more or less distant but ever "kindly kin."
I have had the pleasure of reading some remark-
ably vivacious and charming letters from one such
fortunate maiden, as they were copied by my rela-
tive, Mr. Livingston Rutherfurd, into his valuable
but privately printed volume concerning the
Rutherfurd family in America.

During the long absences of the male heads of
the manor families the administration of their
home afiairs was left in the hands of capable stew-

203

aods, who were always under the supervision of the
manor ladies Margaret Beeckman, the wife of
Judge Livingston, second (and last) lord of the
Lower Manor, was the mother of Chancellor Liv-
ingston and of nine other goodly sons and daugh-
ters, most of whom eventually became distin-
guished persons. She displayed remarkable ability
not only in fulfilling the duties of her high position
during the lifetime of her husband, and in the
management of his great estate after his decease,
but also in the wise upbringing of her large &mily.
An account-book kept in her own hand, with
copious notes relating to crops and stock on her
many farms, and to contracts with dealers in limi-
ber, wools, and furs, as well as to the more inti-
mate matters of household economy, shows a mind
of much more than common business ability and
breadth of view. The household supplies of every
sort were on a scale commensurate with the family's
social position, and would in themselves make most
interesting reading for one who loves to make the
past seem present by recalling the homely details
of domestic life.

All the manor families had always encouraged
what were then " home industries " in a strictly
literal sense. But there were many things which
the largest private expenditure could not produce
in the new country, and Mrs. Livingston's old ac-
count-book shows that persons of wealth did not,
for this reason, deprive themselves of much which

204

they desired to possess. The things sent for from
England, France, and Holland were varied, nu-
merous, and costly. Great treasures of tapestries,
pictures, inlaid cabinets, jewels, satins, velvets, and
laces, as well as old wines, delicate porcelains,
and expensive plate, must have been lost when
the Clermont manor-house was burned by the
British during our Revolutionary War. Among
the imported articles were "An eboney Cabinet
garnished out with Silver," which cost £^o, and
another of " Tortus Shell, garnished with Silver
Guilte," costing ^65 15^. " Two setts of bed cur-
tayns broidered, lined & fringed," were £^0 each.
" Thirty six yards of Broussells carpett with bor-
der,'* ^36. These prices probably covered freight
charges as well as the original cost. All of these
were great treasures for their day, and many such
had been imported by Judge and Mrs. Livingston ;
but they exist no longer, save on the yellow but
strong paper and in the good black ink of the
leather-covered account-book kept for many years
by Mrs. Margaret B. Livingston,

CHAPTER XIII

A COUNTRY PARSON'S WIFE

Lake, Gallup, Chcse-
brough,andWorthington;
Elliott, Chauncey, Hop-
kins, Ely, and Goodrich.
The Parsonage and its
Furnishings.
Fire and Flint.

QHE roots of a strong character draw

Trjh their nutriment from fer beneath the
Kx surface; therefore it is less amiss
^^ than it might seem that we begin
the simple story of this country
pastor's wife by referring to that of another woman,
who preceded her by more than a century.

During the twenty-five years which intervened
between the landing at Plymouth and the battle of
Naseby, New England had become the place of
refuge for many of those to whom the mother-
land had ceased to be home save in fond remem-
brance. Among these self-exiled were many who
fled from the choice which they must make, if they
remained in England, between their faith on the
one hand and an inborn and inbred loyalty to their
king on the other.

Of these was one Mrs. Margaret Lake, who is
mentioned in our chapter on " A Pioneer Home."
She was one of the original grantees of the town-
ship of New London, Connecticut, " sharing in all
the grants and divisions of land made to the other
settlers." Beyond this feet, and that she was a sis-
ao7

3<^

ter of the second Governor Winthrop's second
wife, little more than is told in that chapter is
known concerning her. The father of Mrs. Win-
throp and Mrs. Lake belonged to that class which
has ever furnished the backbone of old England
— the frequently gentle born though often far
from wealthy class of hereditar}' landowners, living
at a distance from courts and fashions, but availing
themselves of the best educational advantages
afforded in their time. Many of this class fought
and died for the worthless Stuarts, and to it also
belonged the most upright and humane portion of
Cromwell's ever-valiant forces.

The years from 1645 onward to 1675, the date of
the battle with the Pequots known as the Great
Swamp Fight, were full of danger to the New
England colonists. Whatever their tender-hearted
descendants may think about the matter in these
days of security, there is no doubt that to our an-
cestors the Indian was a continual menace and ter-
ror, and no man gained more of the admiration of
his fellows than he who best held in check this
formidable foe. Among such defenders none in
what is now known as New London County, Con-
necticut, was held to be stronger of arm and more
dauntless of soul than Captain John Gallup, the
son of a father equally renowned in the same line.

The first Captain John Gallup was a grandson
of Thomas Gallup, owner of the manors of North
Bowood and Strode in Dorsetshire, England.

209

Being a younger son of a younger son, the emi-
grating Gallup may reasonably be supposed not to
have possessed an unduly large share of this world's
gear, but it is certain that he speedily became a
man of some substance and much value in the
colonies. His son, the second Captain Gallup,
married Hannah, daughter of Mrs. Margaret Lake,
thus bringing together the gentle and the warlike,
and from their union sprang a race many of whose
descendants have made their mark by council-fires
and on the tented field, passing from one to the
other as the needs of their country required, but
flinching from no difficulty or danger when fol-
lowing what appeared to them to be their duty.

William Gallup, a son of the second John Gal-
lup and Hannah Lake, married Sarah, a daughter
of Samuel and granddaughter of William Chese-
brough of Stonington, Connecticut The last-
named came from England in 1630 in Wintbrop's
fleet Of Mr. Chesebrough it has been written that
" he could frame a building or he could sit as
judge in a case at law. He could forge a chain
or draw up a plan for the organization of the
municipal government. He could survey a tract of
land or he could represent his town in the General
Court and adjust its disturbed relations with the
constituted [colonial] authorities." This shows
him to have been a typical Yankee of the best
sort — a man who could successfully turn his
capable hands and brains to any useful thing.

HlO-

It is said that Mr. William Chesebrough was
man of strong religious convictions, and certainl
he must have enjoyed religious services, for it i
recorded that in bad seasons, when the necessaril;
ill-made roads of the time were rendered more thai
usually impassable by heavy freshets and oozinj
frosts, he had been " known to start for church a
a little after midnight in order to accomplish ii
good time the fifteen miles that lay between hi
home and the meeting house." It required boti
strength of muscle and conviction to render the bes
of men so zealous as that. But, with all his zeal
Mr. Chesebrough had a fund of humor whicl
made his genial society sought by young and oh
until his death in 1667, while his "judicious mild
ness smoothed many public and private difficultie
in the region where he was, in two senses, the 6rs
settler."

It is this Mr. Chesebrough's granddaughter
Temperance Gallup, whose marriage to the Rev
William Worthington Is related in our accoum
of" A Colonial Wedding," and it was one of tht
daughters of this couple who, in 1756 or 17J7
became the wife of the Rev. Cotton Mather Smitfc
of Sharon, Connecticut,

The Rev. William Worthington was the firsi
settled pastor of the West Parish of Saybrook, Con'
necticut, where he died in 1756. Family tra^
ditions, coming down through several lines of
descendants, unite in ascribing to him "greai

blandness, urbanity and grace of manner com-
bined with a keen and trenchant wit." He was
considered a learned man in his day, and as a
preacher "was distinguished for using the persua-
sions of the Gospel rather than the terrors of the
law." Mr. Worthington left five daughters and
one son — also William Worthington, a colonel
of patriotic troops during the Revolutionary War,
who died a bachelor. The youngest daughter
married Dr. Aaron Elliott, son of the Rev. Jared
Elliott of Killingwoith, now Clinton, Connecticut
Another married Colonel John Ely of Lyme, Con-
necticut, whose noble record of high patriotism is
but too little known. A third daughter married
Elnathan Chauncey. A fourth daughter married
Mr. William Hopkins. All of the sons-in-law of
the Rev. William Worthington were prominent
men in their several places of residence, and from
all of them have descended many persons of social
and intellectual distinction. It was the second
daughter, Temperance, who became the wife of the
Rev. Cotton Mather Smith of Sharon, Connecticut.
All of the sisters bore a contemporary reputa-
tion of being more accomplished than most of the
women of their time. Their &ther, being in ad-
vance of his age in considering that girls had as
much brain and as much use for it as boys, had
given to his daughters every attainable advantage.
Comparatively few of the pastors of Parson Wor-
thington's generation paid visits to Europe, but

Mrs. Smith and one of her sisters in their girl-
hood accompanied their father on a visit which he
made to England. In the diary of Juliana Smith
we find this " long and arduous "journey referred
to several times, but with an exasperating brevity
and incompleteness, as :

" When Mamma was with Grandfather Wor-
thington in Boston, England, she heard a great
Organ the tones of which rolled like the Ocean,
and the whole soul melted to its music."

And again, writing in 1779:

" When my Mother and Aunt were in England,
thirty years ago, they were hospitably entertained
at the country seats of some of my Grandfather's
relatives there, and now we are told that one of
them, who was an officer of the King's troops, and
was an Ensign then, is now a Major, and is sick
and a Prisoner in the hands of the Continentals.
My Father will use every effort to have him brought
to us, and then it is possible we may secure an ex-
change for my Uncle Ely, who holds the same rank
in our army, and is now a Prisoner in the hands
of the British in New York."

This exchange, so much desired, was not effected,
the doctor being found too useful as a physician
among the sick prisoners confined in the "Old Sugar

House." It was nearly or quite at the close of the
war when Dr. Ely, much broken in health, but not
in spirit, was restored to his femily.

Mr. S. G. Goodrich (Peter Parley), who was the
grandson of Mrs. Chauncey, says that Mrs. Smith
and her sisters were all "noted for their wide read-
ing, their elegant manners, and their excellent
house-wifery." The last two accomplishments may
be taken without qualification, but in regard to the
first claim it is necessary to make allowance for
the conditions and times. Mr. Worthington's
daughters certainly read Shakspere and Milton,
for odd volumes of both of these classics still exist
bearing the name of "Temperance Worthington,
from her Father," written on fly-leaves. Both bear
evidence of having been well read, though care-
fully used. (Books were iar too costly and rare to
be treated slightingly.) It is said that all of Mr.
Worthington's daughters were good Latin scholars,
and it is certain that at least one of them, Mrs.
Smith, was a iairly good French scholar, speaking
the language sufficiently well to act as interpreter
when occasion required, as it sometimes did when
the French troops were here during our Revolu-
tionary War. The same useful office was filled by
one of her sisters, Mrs. Ely, I think, at Newport,
Rhode Island. Mrs. Smith taught the language
of our allies to her own sons and daughters, giving
them such an interest in it that at least two of them
continued to read French and translate it with ease,

214

even in their latest years. Where Mrs. Smith ac-
quired her knowledge of the French tongue I do
not know. It wasa most unusual accomplishment
in the New England of her time, and may have
been gained in one of the Huguenot schools in New
Rochelle. There is no proof that she attended
one of these, but several circumstances seem to
point that way ; among them is the existence of
some delicate specimens, made by"Madamc Smith"
and her daughters, of such needlework as was then
universally known as " French embroidery."

The house to which Mrs. Smith came as a bride,
in 1756 or 1757, was built a few years before that
date by her husband's predecessor, the Rev. Mr.
Searle. In spite of the fact that this dwelling was
still in an admirable state of preservation, it was
taken down in 1812 by my grandfather, who re-
placed it by a house of the then fashionable
Grecian temple style of architecture.

The old house, as described to me, was large and
heavily timbered, with its sides covered with over-
lapping cedar shingles. In front the hipped roof
began to rise from a little above the ceiling of the
first story, but sloped so little that the house was
practically two stories high on that side. At the
rear the roof slowly receded from the ridge-pole to
the long stoep which ran from north to south
across the back of the low-ceiled, many-windowed,
wide and comfortable old manse. On the first
floor four large rooms were grouped round the

ill-
central chimney, against which, and directly op-
posite to the outer door, was a square hall from
which a flight of stairs broken by a platform ran to
the second story. In accordance with the general
usage of the time, this outer door was divided into
upper and lower halves. It opened upon a stone
porch, provided with seats on the sides, and cov-
ered with an overhanging shingled roof unsup-
ported by pillars. At the time that my grand-
&ther remembered it a portion of the stoep at the
rear had been inclosed to afford accommodations
for a summer kitchen, for washing clothes, and
a milk-room. At right angles with the house,
stretching eastward, there ran out from one comer
the immense woodshed, rendered necessary by the
incessantly devouring open 6res ; and near the east-
em extremity of the shed were disposed the other
outbuildings. This was a great improvement upon
the common village usage of colonial days, which
was to cluster the woodshed and some of the ,
smaller outbuildings around the front door.

The village green, which is now so beautifully
elm-embowered, could then have been but a wide
and unkempt common, a pasture-ground where
scattered trees, the scant remains of ancient growths,
afforded shade to sheep, cows, calves, geese, and
sometimes even to swine.

Directly in front of the parsonage, shading its
porch, there stood an immense white-ash tree, be-
lieved to have been the largest of its kind in New

2l6

England, under whose giant branches the Wequag^
nock Indians had often built their council-fires.
This glorious tree lived and apparently flourished
until a great gale in August, 1893. My grand-
father, William Mather Smith (who was bom in
1786), said that within his recollection this tree
had never increased in apparent size. From the
front door to the gate, passing by and under the
great ash, was a short and irregularly flagged walk,
edged with box.

That one of the four principal rooms on the first
floor which opened by four large windows to the
west and south was occupied by the parson, both
as his study and as the class-room for his pupils.
There were then no theological seminaries, and
the young men who wished to be fitted for the
ministry studied with such pastors as were held in
the highest estimation for learning and ability.
About the time of the Revolutionary War the
Rev, Dr. Bellamy of Bethlehem, and the Rev. Cot-
ton Mather Smith of Sharon, seem to have divided
between themselves the greater number of divinity
students of western Connecticut.

The parsonage fumishings would not strike the
modem eye as either abundant or very comforta-
ble, yet there were comparatively few dwellings
of the day so well supplied. The dark mahogany
desk at which the Rev. C. M. Smith wrote hun-
dreds of the sermons preached during his fifty-two
years' pastorate in Sharon is now in possession of

his great-great-grandson. Some of the fine old
chairs and a sofa of the same unrivaled wood, the
latter handsomely carved, but of severe outlines
and unapproachable discomfort, are in the same
ownership. An inlaid sideboard of mahogany
and satinwood, which adorned the parsonage liv-
ing-room, and which had belonged to the parson's
father, is now owned by a great-great-granddaugh-
ter. These, with some small round mahogany
stands for candles, an ebony-framed mirror, and a
few other of the choice things which once stood in
the parsonage, are all that now remain of its fur-
nishings, save the portraits of King George III
and Queen Charlotte. About these the only re-
markable thing is that they exist at all, for they are
on glass, and could not have survived save by dint
of great care ; and who coutd or would have be-
stowed this care immediately after the War of the
Revolution ? The parson and his wife were both
very strong patriots, but it would seem that there
might have lingered some feeling of persoiul loy-
alty to the old sovereigns, which, through it all,
preserved their frail presentments with feithful
care.

One of the comparatively few imported carpets
at that time in the country lay on the parson's
study floor. The living-room, across the hall from
the study, and communicating with the kitchen
behind it, had a carpet of heavy homespun woolen
yam, woven in a pattern of broad, lengthwise

2l8

stripes. Such carpets had two merits: being as
smooth of surface as the " Kensington art squares "
of our day, they were much more easily swept than
the ugly rag carpets ; and being of wool, honestly
spun and woven, were practically indestructible,
save by moths. Some were still made in Connec-
ticut well into this century. In the specimens
which I have seen the colors were a rich red, a
dark yellow, an indigo blue, a dingy purple, and a
dusky green.

The bedroom of the parson and his wife, com-
municating directly with the study, and, through a
passage, with the kitchen also, was a tireless room
opening to the south. No wonder that in winter
its tall four-poster was sheltered with heavily woven
linen or wool curtains under the more decorative
hangings of picture chintz. Bitterly cold and
drafty, in zero weather, must have been the
rooms whose only warmth was that which could
escape from the adjacent rooms. No matter how
generous might be the blaze of the open wood fire,
far more of its heat made its way up the chimney-
throat than to the opposite wall upon which its
evening shadows gaily danced, and still smaller
was the portion which could be coaxed into an
adjoining room.

Heavy bed-hangings were a winter necessity be-
fore steam-heal, furnaces, or even stoves had been
invented. My father and his brother, who well
remembered these days, which, in country places.

219

continued until about the end of their college terms
in 1830 and 1832, have told me that on cold
nights, after the fires had been covered, the wind
often blew in great gusts down the wide-throated
chimney, and that then the bed-curtains, heavy as
they were, " blew like handkerchiefs in a gale," and
they were glad enough of the additional protection
for their ears and heads of warm nightcaps knitted
by grandmother, mother, or cousin from the yam
even then still spun at home from the wool of
their own sheep.

As friction matches did not come into general
use until 1835' or thereabout, it was stilt the cus-
tom to bank the fireplaces with ashes at night
until not an ember or spark of fire could be seen,
just as similar fires had been banked for untold
centuries before. If this precaution were not
thoroughly taken the fires were an ever-imminent
danger. On very cold and windy nights it was cus-
tomary for some members of a family to take turns
in sitting up to watch the fires.

My fethcr, when a boy of eight or nine years,
saw his &ther display to admiring neighbors " a
wonderfully handy new invention by which fires
could be readily kindled." Something like the
trigger 'of a flint-lock musket was pulled, and a
spark struck from the flint and steel, which ignited
a bit of punk ; this, being judiciously blown upon,
set fire to splinters of resinous wood, and this, in
turn, to carefully reared piles of splintered kin-

dlings and well-seasoned logs. Before the advent of
the ** fire-sparker " of flint and steel, when the earliest
riser of a family was so unfortunate as to find that the
too slightly protected embers of the previous night's
fires had burned themselves out, or that the too
densely covered ones had been hopelessly smo-
thered, it was his chilly task to wait and watch forthe
nearest chimney which should show rising smoke,
and then to sally forth, with chafing-dish or foot-
stove in hand, to " borrow coals."

CHAPTER XIV
HOME CARES IN A PARSONAGE

CHAPTER XIV. J

HOME CARES IN A /

PARSONAGE. <

* *

Madam Smith's Multt- i,

plied Employments. /

Small ■ Incomes and Many *

Out-goes. J

Extracts from Madam J

Smith's Reminiscences. 1

The Small-pox. .

Hospitality. *

The Preaching of White- .

field. \

^(^o^^N Madam Smith's time, and for
^ w O many a long year before and af-
I tci'i there was never a matron so
O O ^**'*y ^^^ ^^^ ^^ "o' ^^f' hands

^^^^Q full of Martha-like cares. In
general the richer the family the more arduous
were these cares ; but, of them all, not even the
lady of a manor was so overburdened as was the
parson's wife — the " madam," as she was generally
styled, — so much was demanded of her, so multi-
&rious were her duties. Ministerial stipends were
then very small. Mr. Smith's salary at the time of
his settlement, in 1754. was "220 Spanish dollars
or an equivalent in old tenor bills." In addition
to this he was to receive, as what was then known
as a "settlement," "140 ounces of silver or an
equivalent in old tenor bills, annually for three
years." I believe that the yearly salary was sub-
sequently increased, but do not know to what
extent

Salaries of four or even of three hundred dollars
a year were considered liberal in country places un-
til years after the Revolution. On such small sums.

eked out by the produce from a certain number of
acres of glebe-land, the minister was expected not
only to support his own &mily, but to bear an un-
due share in the entertaining of strangers, as well as
in aiding the neighboring poor. When, as some-
times happened, either the pastor or his wife faad
private property, still more was expected oTthem,
and rarely indeed did they hi\ to respond to this
expectation. Parson Smith, in a letter to his son-
in-law, the Rev. Daniel Smith of Stamford, Con-
necticut, written in 1804, states that in his family
there were maintained, in addition to his own six
children, " an average of four penniless orphans
during more than thirty years." These were not
only fed and clothed, but educated, at the parson's
sole expense. They, with his own children, the
divinity students, and some of the boys whom he
fitted for college and who resided with him, made
a household of unusual numbers even for those
days of large families, and entailed a great amount
of care and labor on his own part, while his wtft
must have been very heavily burdened.

Long working hours were a necessity of the
period. Five o'clock was the usual breakfast-hour
in summer, and from six to half-past six in winter.
Dinner was at noon, and tea at six in winter and
seven in summer. This was so that the many tasks
might be accomplished, for sufficient unto each day
was its own work ; it had no room for labors left
over from the day before.

225

Wheat, rye, and com were ground into flour and
meal at the local mills, and salted Ash, sugar,
molasses, " West India Sweetmeats," and, except-
ing in war-times, tea, coffee, and chocolate, could
be bought at the village stores; but aside from
these, with long volumes of a country store's ac-
count-books, covering many years, open before me,
I can hardly find a trace of any kind of provisions
that did not have to be produced and prepared,
from start to finish, by manual labor on. the larais
and in each individual household — and all this
without the aid of any of the toil-saving devices
which we now deem matters of course.

Perhaps an idea of some of these daily labors
may be best conveyed by extracts from relations
which were found among the old papers some years
ago. Mrs. Smith in 1775 had made the week-
long and perilous journey from Sharon, Connecti-
cut, to Fort Ticonderoga, where her husband was
dangerously ill of camp fever. All the way above
Saratoga was through an unbroken wilderness. In
after years Mrs. Smith told her story many times,
and at least three of her children made notes of her
narrations, from which the full story was compiled
and told in the first person. Some years ago this
was published, under the title of" Led by a Vision,"
in the " Home-Maker," a magazine then most ably
edited by Mrs. E. P. Terhune — "Marion Har-
land." From this sketch the following extracts
are taken:

226

" Your dear Father was among the very first
volunteer and received the honored post of Cha
lain to the Fourth Connecticut Regiment, cor
manded by Colonel Hinman, and ordered to man
to Ticonderoga, In common with many oth
well qualified Pastors my Husband had been intl
habit of receiving into his family from time to tin
such young men as might wish, after leaving colleg
to fit themselves for the Gospel Ministry. At ti
time there were five such students in our hous
My Husband provided for them by engaging h
beloved ftiend,the Rev. Dr. Bellamy, of Bethleher
to come and reside in our house, prosecute tl
education of the young theological students, supp
the Sharon pulpit and attend to pastoral dutie
a young friend of Dr. Bellamy engaging to p<
form like brotherly services for him in his pans
As Dr. Bellamy had two students of his own 1
brought them with him, which added to tho
already in our house made my family to consi
of twent)--two persons besides servants.

" In our present state of peace and plenty [l79'
this does not seem so verj' great a burden ; but
that time when the exactions of the Mother Cou
try had rendered it impossible for any but tl
wealthiest to import anything to eat or wear, at
all had to be raised and manu&ctured at hom
from bread stuffs, sugar and rum to the linen ar
woollen for our clothes and bedding, you may w(
imagine that my duties were not light, though

can say for myself that I never complained even
in my inmost thoughts, for if I could even give up
for the honored cause of Liberty, the Husband
whom I loved so dearly that my constant fear was
lest I should sin to idolatry, it would assuredly
have ill become me to repine at any inconvenience
to myself And besides, to tell the truth, I had no
leisure for murmuring. I rose with the sun and
alt through the long day I had no time for aught
but my work. So much did it press upon me
that I could scarcely divert my thoughts from its
demands even during the family prayers, which
thing both amazed and displeased me, for during
that hour, at least, I should have been sending all
my thoughts to Heaven for the safety of my be-
loved Husband and the salvation of our hapless
Country ; instead of which I was often wondering
whether Polly had remembered to set the sponge
for the bread, or to put water on the leach tub, or
to turn the cloth in the dying vat, or whether wool
had been carded for Betsey to start her spinning
wheel in the morning, or Billy had chopped light-
wood enough for the kindling, or dry hard wood
enough to heat the big oven, or whether some
other thing had not been forgotten of the thousand
that must be done without feil or else there would
be a disagreeable hitch in the house-keeping; so
you may be sure that when I went to bed at night,
I went to sleep and not to lie awake imagining all
sorts of disasters that might happen. There was

»8

generally enough that had happened to keep n
mind at work if I stayed awake, but that I ve
seldom did. A perfectly healthy woman has goc
powers of sleep. . . .

"On the third Sabbath in September Dr. B<
lamy gave us a sound and clear sermon in whi<
God's watchful Providence over his People w
most beautiftilly depicted and drew tears from tl
eyes of those who were unused to weeping, ai
during the prayer-meeting in the evening the san
thought was dwelt upon in a way showing that i
who spoke and prayed felt that our God is inde*
a Father to all who trust him; so that on th
night I went to bed in a calmer and more co
tented frame of mind than usual. I had, to 1
sure, been much displeased to find that our supp
of bread (through some wasteful mismanagemei
of Polly's) had grown so small that the bakir
would have to be done on Monday morning, whic
is not good house-keeping ; for the washing shoul
always be done on Monday and the bakings c
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. But I ha
caused Polly to set a large sponge and made Bill
provide plenty of firing so that by getting up b
times in the morning we could have the brick ov(
heated and the baking out of the way by the tiit
Billy and Jack should have gotten the clothe
pounded out ready for boiling, so that the tw
things should not interfere with each other. TJ
last thought on my mind after commitring n-

dear Husband and Country into our Maker's care
for the night, was to charge my mind to rise even
before daylight that I might be able to execute
my plans. . . .

"As early as three o'clock in the morning I
called Nancy and Judy, Jack and young Billy,
but would not allow old Billy to be disturbed ;
whereat the rest marvelled, seeing that I was not
used to be more tender of him than of any of the
other servants, but rather the less so in that he was
my own slave that my Father had given to me
upon my marriage. But I let them marvel, for
truly it was no concern of theirs, and by five
o'clock the bread was ready to be moulded, the
hickory coals were lying in a great glowing mass
on the oven bottom, casting a brilliant light over
its vaulted top and sending such a heat into my
iace when I passed by the oven mouth that it
caused me to rhink then, as it always does, of
Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, seven times heated.
Young Billy was already pounding out the clothes
and over the fire Jack was hanging the great brass
kettles for the wash, while Nancy and Judy had
made ready the smoking hot piles of Johnny cake,
the boiler of wheat coffee (which was all we could
get in those days, and a poor substitute it was for
good Mocha) and the big platter of ham and eggs
and plenty of good potatoes roasted in the ashes,
which is the best way that potatoes can be cooked,
in my opinion."

230

^. The diverse housewifely cares indicated in the

Y foregoing extracts show but a few of the many

which fell to the lot of all colonial women of the
better classes. Upon the minister's wife devolved
still other duties. She was expected to assist at all
the births, weddings, and funerals, not only in the
French sense, but as an active helper. It is related
ui ! of Madam Smith that for thirty years it was into

t) her hands that most of the new-bom babies of her

!v I husband's parish were committed for their first rob*

[ i ings. And there being then, in country places at

ij' least, no undertakers, as we now understand the

;'. term, but in their stead only cabinet-makers who

i' made coffins as well as cradles, chairs, and tables,

Mrs. Smith shared with other ladies the last sad
;, offices for friends and neighbors.

',; In times of general sickness — which were much

■| more frequent than now, owing to the ignorance of

I sanitary precautions and all means for controlling

;■ contagious disease — both the pastor and his wife

were ever at the service of the fiock. It is re-
corded in Sedgwick's valuable history of Sharon
,' that in the winter of 1784-85 there was "a three

months' visitation of the town by the small-pox,
during which seven hundred persons out of a
population of about two thousand had the dreaded
disease, either naturally or by inoculation," and that
throughout this time of distress Parson Smith and
his wife "spent their entire time in close atten-
dance upon the sick and dying."

^3'

The entertainment of strangers was a duty which
perhaps devolved more frequently upon the femily
of a country pastor than it should have been per-
mitted to do, but there were occasions when the
hosts felt themselves much more than repaid.

Such an occasion came to Parson and Mrs.
Smith in the month of June in 1770. On the
18th of this month came the Rev. George White-
field on his last and greatest preaching tour. He
had passed up the Hudson River, stopping to
preach at all towns which would give him a hear-
ing, including Albany, whence he passed onward
to Schenectady. Turning at this point, he had
come southward again, visiting townships from
twenty to thirty or more miles back from the east-
em bank of the river, and preaching wherever al-
lowed to do so in the churches, otherwise in the
open air, until he reached Sharon. Here, as had
happened in many other places, " there was," says
Mr. Sedgwick, " considerable opposition to his
being permitted to preach in the meeting-house,"
but Parson Smith's influence, always inclined to the
liberal side on any question, prevailed, and the
church doors were opened, and, "that all the
hearers from this and the neighboring towns might
be well accommodated with seats, extensive scaf-
folds were erected all around the house."

A few of the children and many of the grand-
children of those who had heard Whitefield in
Sharon on this occasion were living in my girl-

hood, and marvelous indeed must have been the
eloquence that was followed by such deep and &r-
reaching results, and was remembered so long.

Most marvelous must the preacher's successful
efforts have seemed to one who, like Madam
Smith, had spent the entire previous night by
his bedside, burning dried stramonium-leaves diat
he might inhale the smoke, and in various other
ways doing her utmost to enable the sufferer to
get his breath, under the violent attacks of asthma
which, three months later, ended his career.

Mrs. Smith and others had feared, all throu^
this anxious nig^t, that their revered patient would
pass from earth before the morning's sun should
rise, yet as it rose his sufferings became gradually
less. He had two or three hours of refreshing
sleep, followed by draughts of strong coffee, and
before the noon came he was able to preach such a
sermon as even he could seldom do, while his
grand voice, " as soft as a flute and as piercing as
a fife," carried for almost incredible distances, not
only his text, " Marvel not that I said unto thee.
Ye must he bom again," but all save the finer
shadings of his message.

The letter of thanks and farewell sent by Mr.
Whitefield from his dying bed at Newburyport,
Massachusetts, did not reach Parson and Mrs.
Smith until more than a month after its writer had
there drawn his last agonized breath; but it was
long cherished as a token from an angel visitant.

CHAPTER XV

SUNDAYS AND OTHER DAYS IN THE
PARSONAGE

XJKr^imS f

"IROM the beginning of the New-

Fi / Englander's Sabbath, at sunset on
W Saturday evening, the housewife
* * must have found that portion of
sacred time anything but a period
of rest. The Saturday evening meal must be
hastened, that the dishes might be washed in secu-
lar time. Personal ablutions were held to be labor
not unbefitting the holy day, and fi-om the earliest
times in the New England colonies, the Saturday
evenings were devoted, first to an hour's catechiz-
ing, and then to the conscientious scrubbing (this
word sounds a little harsh, but it is probably the
correct one to describe the process) of each person
in the family, beginning with the youngest and con-
cluding with the oldest members of the household.
As special rooms for bathing, with hot and cold
water to be had with the turning of the faucet,
were then undreamed-of luxuries, some have sup-
posed that in the fi-equently excessive cold, and
under the lack of all conveniences, our ancestors
were neglectful of the grace of personal cleanliness.
This is, in all probability, a grave mistake. Both

236

tradition and written contemporary evidence go to
prove that personal cleanliness was eqoined as a
religious duty, and that it was a duty religiously
fulfilled, under whatever difficulties.

Hot water could only be procured by heating in
great iron pots over the open fires, and the tubs
employed for bathing were in general the same
which were used for the clothes-washings on Mon-
days, but not always. Some tubs were made for
bathing purposes only, of cedar, and large enou^
for a tall man to lie in at full length. When the
mother of the Rev. C. M. Smith came to l%aron
from Suffield, Connecticut, about 1 770, she brou^t
with her a tub of this sort. As there were no stated
rooms for bathing, the tubs were usually left in the
cellars through the week, that they might not be-
come dry enough to leak. If a fire were not kept
in the best room all the rest of the week, one would
be lighted there on every Saturday during the cold
season, and maintained until late on Sunday nighL
This left free the fires in the kitchens for the ser-
vants, and those in the living-rooms for the &mily.
Here the carpets, if any, were protected, and the
tubs were set, each one shielded from view on all
sides, save that nearest the fire, by heavy woolen
coverlets or blankets hung over clothes-horses.
With the generous size of the fireplaces of those
days, as many as three or even more such curtained
cabinets might be made in front of each fire. As
much cold water as was desired was poured into

^37

each tub and was then brought to the required
temperature by the addition of boiling water from
the great iron or brass kettles.

The carrying out the water that had been used
by each bather, and emptying the tubs at a little
distance from the house, occasionally into a sub-
surface drain, as at the parsonage, or, as in most
cases, into shallow ditches, and of refilling the tubs,
was severe labor, and would probably devolve
upon the strongest of the servants or members of
the family.

Certainly much, and probably all, of the soap
used in the colonies was of home manufacture,
and was so harsh in its quality that as little of it as
possible was used upon the persoru Those who
were careful for their complexions rarely used any
soap about their faces, but instead softened the
water by a very little lye made from the ashes of
hard woods. Rose-water of home distillation and
various unguents were then applied to heal the
smart In warm weather buttermilk was con-
sidered excellent for the complexion, and in severe
winter weather cider brandy was used by some,
and an ointment of mutton tallow and lard by
others.

The house-mistress had not only to see that all
was in readiness for this great weekly ablution, but
that none for whom she was responsible should es-
cape ic Nothing but a case of severe illness was
allowed to excuse any inmate of a self-respecting

2?!

household. This state of things lasted until within
my mother's remembrance. She was bom in 1810,
and one of her earliest recollections was of seeing
old "Kongo Sally," armed with a stout switch,
driving the young darkies, some of whom were
her own grandchildren, in from the outbuildings in
which they sought refuge, to undergo their weekly
scrubbing from her merciless hands and those of
one or two assistants.

As dentistry was an art still in the future, de-
cayed teeth were the rule rather than the excep-
tion among adults until well into the present
century ; yet persons of refined instincts never omit-
ted cleansing the teeth. Juliana Smith, writing to
her brother in 1782, says; "Peggy Evertson has
showed me a present her father brought her from
Albany. It is a brush for the teeth made of fine,
stiff, white bristles set in a back of mother of pearl.
It is better than the sassafras twigs which Tite
CiEsar fringes out for us, because with the brush
you can better cleanse the backs of the teeth. You
wanted to know what you should bring me from
New Haven when you come back, so I write about
this, if so be you might find me one. Only it need
not have so fine a back, one of wood or hom would
please me as well." Tooth-brushes are mentioned
in the Vemey papers, about 1650, as "elegant tri-
fles now used by the ladies of the French Capital."
But smoothly rounded bits of wood, sharpened at
one end, and at the other finely splintered and then

pounded into the semblance of a round paint-
brush, were in use in England long before that, and
washes for "cleanseingthe teeth and sweetningthe
breath " are mentioned in the outht of the child-
bride of Richard II.

The Sharon parsonage was distinguished above
many others of its time in that the best of water for
all purposes was brought into the house from a dis-
tant spring by a primitive aqueduct of cedar logs,
bored through their length to form tubes, then
tightly 6tted together, and laid at a depth of several
feet beneath the surface to protect them from the
frost, while the refiise water was discharged in a
similar way in the opposite direction at a distance
from any dwelling. Within a few years some of
these logs have been dug up, still in a state of feir
preservation, while the decaying remains of others
lay near by. From the same spring which supplied
the parsonage the delicious water was similarly
conducted into the stone mansion of Dr. Simeon
Smith. There still remains the basin which once
received and discharged the water in this house.
It is of smooth and finely grained limestone, about
fourteen inches in diameter at the top, and of equal
depth. Since the introduction of modem plumb-
ing this basin has been used as a pot to hold
growing plants out of doors.

Of course the Puritan parson's wife was expected
to attend every Sabbath service as strictly as him-
self, and perhaps it was not always either pleasant

240

or convenient for her to do so ; but it is not neces-
sary to dwell upon that part. Quite enough has
been said by the last generation or two of persons
who, judging others by themselves, fency that two
long sermons and a prayer-meeting must have
wearied both the souls and the bodies of our an-
cestors, as they would our own. This is not at all
probable. They really liked the long preachments,
the endless prayers, the unmusical singing. Nay,
■f[ more, they loved all of them. They saw and

heard with spiritual eyes and ears, with an inner
uplifting which imparted light, perfume, and har-
mony to their barren surroundings. I do not say that
there were not many who inwardly and some who
openly rebelled at these things, but they were in a
minority. There is every proof that the majority
really enjoyed what we should now consider as very
tiresome Sundays.

To walk, to ride on horseback, or to drive in
springless wagons over miles of often intolerable
roads, and then spend two hours in a fireless church
on a winter day, and, after an hour's interval, to spend
another two hours in the same way, does not seem
very inviting to us; but, in addition to the strong
religious motives to sustain them, these people
had social motives as well. The Sunday services
were pleasures all the more valuable because they
were shared in common. The noon intermission
was a season of social communion most keenly en-
joyed, and the still later adjournment of all to the

catechizing at the parsonage was made interesting
by the permitted freedom of discussion, and the
subsequent interchange of views and friendly greet-
ings. Books were scarce; newspapers, in our
sense, were non-existent; and of such periodicals as
there were, but ftvf would be taken in a small
township. Any new books or papers would first
find their way to the parson, and every intelligent
stranger passing through the place would call at
the parsonage, paying for his entertainment by
bringing as much news from the outside world as
he had been able to collect on his journey, and re-
ceiving as much local information as he could get
to carry away with him and distribute as he pro-
ceeded on his travels. The parsonage was an in-
telligence exchange, and the parson was expected
to give from the pulpit any new religious or politi-
cal information that he had gained through the
week, and, after the Sunday aftemoon catechizing,
his family shared with him the pleasure and duty
of imparting any bits of more personal interest that
had come to their knowledge.

It was fortunate for the madam that Puritan
usage required that as little cooking as might be
should be done on the Sabbath, for otherwise time
and strength would both have failed her; but the
sacred hours ended with the setting of the sun,
and after this there was cooked and served the best
meal of the week, which was made an occasion of
real festivity, and enjoyed with the keen zest im-

34a

parted by long anticipation, by the easy assuraru
that it had been well earned, and by the certain!
that, though the morrow's toils were lying in wai
they could not spoil the pleasures of this hour.

During this privileged time after the "Sunda
night supper," the young folks separated int
groups, unrebuked by their elders. The childre
played games, elderly men talked of theologies
dogmas, politics, and crops, and women of thei
household employments and clothes.

Fashions, like materials, were then much mor

durable than now. As there were no fashior

papers, intelligence on this subject could only b

transmitted from mouth to mouth. A new pape

or cloth pattern was a treasure indeed. It mus

not be supposed that these notable women talke

only about their own clothes, and exchanged onl

P the patterns of women's and infants' apparel, Th

□ attire of husbands and brothers was a matter o

; , equally practical concern to them. The parson'

preaching-suit — black cloth knee-breeches an'

I straight<ul coat — might be made by some itine

r rant tailor, passing from house to house during th

winter, as was the custom of the day, or might i

a few instances have been bought in distant Nei

York or New Haven ; and the sheer linen for hi

bands was probably imported from Holland : bi

all his other garments (and those of most of th

men in his parish), including the long, knitted sil

stockings (worn over woolen ones in winter), wei

^ ^

necessarily of home manufacture. Besides the
linen for the minister's bands, the silk for his stock-
ings was imported ; but every thread of the rest of
his apparel, from the finest linen for his handker-
chiefs and shirts, to the woolen yam for his under-
clothes, was grown or raised upon his own ground,
tilled and cared for, harvested and cured if it were
fJax, or sheared and carded if it were wool, by his
own hands or those of his employees, at least some of
whom must have been slaves; and their clothing also
had to be provided for by his labor and foresight
All New England ministers were to a certain
extent formers as well as pastors, and where the
parson's labors ceased those of the madam and her
daughters and women began. Men hatcheled the
flax, and both men and women carded wool. The
spinning was always the work of women, while
weaving was done principally by men. Between
them they spun, knitted, wove, fulled and dyed,
cut, fitted, and adomed all the textile fabrics worn.
Carpets were seldom woven at home, and damask
table-linen, if not imported, was usually the work
of a professional weaver. So, too, were the blue-
and-white or green-and-white all wool or cotton-
and-wool coverlets of elaborate patterns of which
so many still remain; but the yam or thread for
them all, whether linen, cotton, or wool, was spun
at home. Sheets, blankets, and all simply striped
or checked table-linen and bed-hangings were
woven as well as spun at home.

^44

The summers were especially busy, neither m(
nor women, bond nor free, those in the prime c
lite nor the aged, nor children, could idle away th
long summer days. The great grain-fields of tt
West were still unawakened from their ages c
slumber. Wheat, rye, buckwheat, com, oats, mu
all be raised here.

With agricultural implements so imperfect thj
no modem farmer would condescend to use then
the labors of planting, sowing, haying, and harves
ing were great. In these days we know the evi!
of competition and the nervous strain from th
perpetual unrest of our lives, but we know neithe
the disadvantages of severe manual labor nor muc
about the ceaseless toil necessary in summer t
provide lor winter's daily physical needs. Thes
labors were healthful in their nature, but pitilcE
in their exactions.

Winter's toils were sufficiently arduous. Pre
viding the fuel for the indispensable and endlessl
craving open wood fires was alone a heavy tash
and there were many others, such as the daily car
of the horses, sheep, swine, and fowls; yet i:
winter it was possible to find time to read, writt
and study, as well as to enjoy such social gathei
ings as might combine amusement with worl
What some of these pleasures were may be see:
in other chapters. Here we will only glance a
one which was peculiar to the Revolutionar
period.

ill

Bullets had become very scarce. Madam Smith,
like most well-to-do matrons of her time, possessed
a goodly store of pewter plates, platters, cups, bowls,
and porringers. Several of the neighboring ladles
were equally well supplied. On a certain early
spring evening in 1777 Madam Smith invited all
to come and bring with them every pewter dish
which they could spare. Before the time for
separation came many gallons of good bullets had
been made from the cherished pewter articles, which
had been melted and merrily run through bullet
molds, and a good supper had been heartily en-
joyed. For many evenings after this one of cheer-
ful sacrifice, there were held from house to house
so-called " trencher bees," whereat the young men
cut and shaped maple and poplar wood into dishes,
which the women made smooth by scraping with
broken glass, and polished with the clean white
sand of powdered limestone. Madam Smith, and
probably most of the other contributors to the bul-
let fund, possessed a good deal of pretty Lowestoft
and Delft, as well as Canton blue china, but the
every-day use of such fragile dishes was not to be
thought of, especially in war-time, when they could
in nowise be replaced ; hence the necessity tor the
retum to the primidve wooden dishes of the sev-
enteenth century.

All existing records of Madam Smith — and they
are many — prove her to have been one of those
noble women, a few of whom are to be found in all

246

countries and in every age, who are so cheerfully
brave that they lace suffering and danger in all
forms, unconscious that they are doing anything
more than any other would do, yet so lovable and
so gracious in their strength that they arc mourned
until the last one who knew them has himself
passed from earthly scenes. Madam Smith died in
1800, and for all the years after her decease until
her husband and the latest lingerer of her children
had departed to join her, the letters which passed
between the survivors are filled with touching
references to the beloved wife and revered mother.

CHAPTER XVI

MANOR LADIES AS REFUGEES

Flight of the Livingstons
from Kingston and Cler-
mont to Litchfield
Count}-, Connecticut.
The Young Van Rens-
selaer.
Westerlo.
Vaughan's Raid.
Ladies as Hostlers.
Husking Bees.

pURING the War of the Revolu-

D/aS tion those manors which were
^ situated on or near the Hudson
River were exposed to the ravages
of both parties in the struggle —
some from the British forces and some from the
Continental armies, according to the side which
had been espoused by the respective owners of
the manors. The De Lanceys were not techni-
cally manor-holders, but their estates were so large
that they were popularly reckoned as such, and
they, with the family from the Phillipse Patent,
sought refuge within the British lines, while the
patriotic Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts, and
Livingstons retired to regions that were so far
from the harassed territory as to promise compara-
tive safety.

First, die Van Cortlandts fled from the Neutral
Ground, carrying as many of their household pos-
sessions as they could by sloops, and having their
flocks and herds driven up through the country in
patriarchal fashion, to seek refuge among Mrs.
Van Cortlandt's relatives, the Livingstons, in Co-
249

■y*;

lumbia and Dutchess counties. But by the autum
of 1777 this neighborhood had become aimost j
full of danger as the lower counties, and all prom
nent persons, both refugees and natives, wei
obliged to strike their tents and seek shelter i
happier regions.

For many of them the new haven of refuge ej
isted in the northwestern corner of the State of Cor
necticut, about midway between the Hudson an
Connecticut rivers, and from eighty to one hundrei
miles from salt water. Here, at a safe distanc
from water-highways, in one of the healthtiilest ani
most placidly beautiful of highlands, the horrors
war never penetrated, though its terrors wer
abundantly known to those — and they were
majority of the inhabitants — who had sent thei
best beloved to battle for the cause which the]
held dearer than life or estates.

The earliest of the manor families to take ad
vantage of this haven of rest among the hills ap
pears to have been that of Mrs. Van Rensselaer
widow of the sixth patroon, and mother of the deli
cate boy who afterward became the honored Genera
Van Rensselaer, and who, even after the new stat<
of things had relegated such titles to the realm of
the past, was by courtesy styled the seventh pa
troon. The lad's mother was a daughter of Philii
Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Inde
pcndcnce, and upon this grandfather the genera
care of the promising boy's education devolve!

until Mr. Livingston's death in June of 1778.
Singularly enough, there appears to be no published
reference to the sojourn of young Van Rensselaer in
Connecticut, it being stated that he went directly
from Kingston, New York, to Harvard College.
Yet the proof is positive that during the summer
of 1777 the young patroon and his mother, who
had first retired to Philip Livingston's temporary
residence at Kingston, finding the dangers to which
the young heir was there exposed, retreated to Con-
necticut in the safer recesses of the Litchfield
County hills. Here they continued to reside dur-
ing much, if not all, of the following year. Prob-
ably they were led to the beautifiil village of Sharon
by the previous friendship of Mrs. Van Rensselaer
with the wife of the Rev. Cotton Mather Smith,
who was pastor there. When the first of these
ladies was Catherine Livingston of New York
city, and the second was Temperance Worthing-
ton of Saybrook, Connecticut, the two had some-
where become intimate friends — possibly at school
in New Rochelle, where there were at that time
several rather noted private schools conducted
by the refugee Huguenots or their immediate
descendants.

Sometime during 1775 the widowed Mrs. Van
Rensselaer had married her second husband, the
Rev. Eilardus Westerlo of the Refomied Dutch
Church. In the papers at my command she is
never called Mrs. Westerlo, but, probably from

252

habit, is indifferently referred to as " Mrs. Van R."
or as the " Mother of the young Patroon " or as
" Catherine Livingston," though there is tittle doubt
that Mr.Westcrlo was of the party.for I find that one
of that name occupied Mr. Smith's pulpit twice in
November of 1 777 ; but I find no other mention
of him, while it is recorded that "young Van R.
and his mother," and a little later the Rev. John
Rodgers of the Brick Church of New York city,
were received into the family of the Rev. C. M.
Smith, under whose direction young Stephen Van
Rensselaer and the " Parson's son," afterward Gov-
ernor John Cotton Smith of Connecticut, prosecuted
their studies for college as diligently as if such a
thing as war was never heard of The first inten-
tion of young Van Rensselaer's guardians had been
that he should enter Yale College, of which his
grandfather and the latter's four brothers had been
graduates, but eventually Harvard was chosen as
being safer from the raids of the enemy.

The arrival of this litde company in advance of
the main body of the refugees is traditionally said
to have been due to repeated attempts on the part
of armed bands of Tories to abduct the wealthy
young patroon in the hope of extorting a heavy
ransom. The later flight of the family of Philip
Livingston and the other families that had been
sheltered under his roof at Kingston was extremely
hurried, but probably not quite unpremeditated;
otherwise there could not have been so much

253_

household furniture and stuff brought across the
river and over the forty or more miles of intervening
hills and dales.

On the day of the departure from Kingston a
" mounted runner " had been sent ahead to secure
in Sharon such accommodations as might be avail-
able. The women and children were therefore im-
mediately provided with shelter, but for several
nights their male companions were obliged to sleep
in haymows. Refugees from places farther down
the Hudson River had been for days, and even
weeks, straggling into the little village, and many
of them were without money or goods, so that the
resources of the hospitable inhabitants had been
already severely taxed.

Next door to the parsonage, where the first of
the manor parties had been received, was a hand-
some but not very large brick cottage, ovfrned by
Robert G. Livingston, which, during this season of
fear, must have been more than sufficiently filled.
Mr. Robert G. Livingston's family was numerous
enough to crowd it without counting servants, and
to this number was now added the ^rnily of his
relative Philip Livingston, and that of the latter's
daughter Sarah and her husband, the Rev. John
Henry Livingston. The house — which, by succes-
sive additions, all of them fortunately in keeping
with the architecture of the original structure, is
now a truly beautiful as well as spacious cot-
tage belonging to the Rev. C. C. Tiffany — then

contained but three rooms on the ground floor ani
three on the second, with two tolerably spaciou
attics over all ; and, like the five loaves and two smal
fishes, what were they among so many ? Tb
united families probably did not consist of less thai
twenty persons, exclusive of slaves. It is true cha
" the boys " seem to have found lodgings in nei^
boring houses, though all were already crowdet
with the patriot refugees from the Neutral Grount
and the upper river counties — refugees of ever]
age and rank, and in great numbers. Probably thii
quiet little village will never again be so densclj
populated as it was during the eventfiil month!
of the last third of the year of Burgoyne's surrender
In September of that year all things were looking
dark enough for the patriot cause. Burgoyne anti
his dreaded Indian allies were threatening from the
north. Sir Henry Cltntun, working up toward
Burgoyne fi'om New York, had intended to fbnn 3
juncture with him. Sir Henry had sent up the
Hudson a band of one thousand men under Gen-
eral Vaughan — a name long afi:erward held in
abhorrence from New York to Albany. This
band did some gallant fighting in the capture of
Forts Montgomery and Clinton, and some good
work for their side in removing the chains and
booms which General Putnam had caused to be
stretched across the river to impede navigation;
but beyond these things it "accomplished nothing
save a good deal of safe and cautious marauding.'

_!££.

This included the homing, pillaging, and in for
too many cases the murder of the defenseless.

In those days war was never undertaken as a
philanthropic enterprise, and that boats and other
means of transportation, as well as mills and stores
of all sorts, should be destroyed was to be expected :
but when village after village, however small, stra-
tegically unimportant, or utterly incapable of resis-
tance each might be, was given up to relentless
pillage and then burned, great was the crop of bit-
ter feelings sown, to be reaped by the loyalists
when the fortunes of war eventually turned against
them, especially as it was well known that to
many a retired ferm-house sheltering only women
and children, as well as to more pretentious but
still equally unprotected residences, the torch had
been applied by the hands of neighboring Tories
who once had been friendly to their owners. After
the war, whenever there was found to exist the bit-
ter spirit which cast the loyalists forth by thousands
to take an unwilling refuge in the wilds of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick, it was discovered, upon
investigation, that acts of gratuitous cruelty had
many times been committed by them, or at least
by those whose cause they had espoused, for in
this case, as in all others, the innocent suffered with
the guilty.

On the Manor of Clermont, or the Livingston
Lower Manor, as it was indifferently called, near
Rhinebeck and Red Hook, on the eastern bank of

'56

the Hudson, stood the fine residences of the widow
of Judge Robert R. Livingston and of her son,
Robert R^ afterward known as the first and very
able Chancellor Livingston of the State of New
York. Both of these mansions had long been
marked for destruction, and their inmates had re-
ceived repeated warnings to that effect, even before
the general raid of Vaughan's troops had advanced
from the Neutral Ground in the early October of
1777; yet the families had not left their homes
until sure that the enemy was within a few hours'
distance.

At this very time two British officers, a wounded
Captain Montgomery and his surgeon, prisoners on
parole, were being most hospitably entertained and
cared for in the iamily of the elder Mrs. Living-
ston. Tradition holds that this Captain Mont-
gomery was a relative of Mrs. Livingston's late
son-in-law. General Montgomery, who at an early
period of the war had fallen while leading the Con-
gressional troops to the assault of Quebec. How-
ever this might be, both of the British officers
begged their hostess not to forsake her home,
promising that their presence should be a sure pro-
tection to all under the roof that had so kindly
sheltered them. It is stated that Mrs. Livingston
refused to take advantage of the offer on the
ground that she could not accept any favors shown
to herself unless the same should be extended to
her neighbors. But it may also have been that

^^^V~i^^^B

257

she did not have sufficient confidence in the power
of her two friends to accomplish all that their hearts
prompted. It would certainly seem that even if
the owners of the house did not choose to remain
and run the risk of personal violence, the presence
in it of the invalid British officer and his physician
might have protected the dwelling from fire and
pillage. As this did not prove to be the case, the
supposition is that their intercessions were of no
avail.

Mrs. Livingston's flight was barely in time.
The news of the pillagings lower down the river
was not confirmed soon enough to enable the fugi-
tives to make many preparations. Wagons which
for some weeks had been held in readiness for any
such emergency were hastily laden with pictures,
silver, and other of the most precious possessions,
and with the most necessary articles of furniture,
clothing, and bedding. Of the rest, as much as
possible was hidden in a deep ravine but a short
distance from the rear of the house, underneath
trees which had been felled across it some months
before. Above the furniture in the cave thus
formed was scattered a thick covering of hay. The
entrance was on the lower end of the ravine and
escaped the notice of the marauders. The books
forming the fine library of the late Judge Livingston
were laid in the dry basin of a large fountain in
the front of the house, which had been allowed to
get dry from the difficulty and expense attending

repairs at this time. In this basin the books were
covered first with old sloop sails, and then with
bam-yard refuse. A number of these volumes
were afterward found in fairly good condition,
and some are still preserved in the families of rela-
tives and friends to whom they were given as
mementos.

Mrs. Livingston was the daughter of Colonel
Henry Beeckman, and her mother was either a
daughter or a granddaughter of Robert Livingston,
Jr., nephew of the first lord of the manor. From
all lines she inherited a sound body and an active
mind. Both mentally and physically she was of
heroic mold. While not in any way foolhardy, it
is related that she knew not fear, and she certainly
was possessed of one of the most valuable gifts in
the world, a keen sense of humor, which is in
itself no small aid to courage. It is a tradition
among all branches of the family that on the morn-
ing of this memorable flight, just as one of the first
wagons was leaving the door, " Mother Margaret"
burst into a hearty laugh, which broke out again
at intervals all during the day — the exciting cause
being the figure made by her cook, a ponderous
old negro woman, perched in anxious and perilous
importance on the top of a hastily packed load
of provisions and kitchen utensils, and pointing
her orders to her grandson, who was the acting
charioteer, by wild thrusts of a long-handled toast-
ing-fork, which by good fortune rarely hit its

259

mark. The situation was, of course, funny enough,
but most of us wait until after all danger is past
before taking a proper sense of the ludicrous.

Mr. Charles H. Hunt, in his generally so accu-
rate as well as interesting memoir of this Mrs.
Livingston's youngest son, — in later years the cele-
brated Governor Livingston of Louisiana, — states
that the destination of the party was " Salisbury,
in Berkshire County, Massachusetts." Salisbury
is in Connecticut, being the northwestemmost
comer of that little State, where the blue Berk-
shire Hills smilingly refuse to acknowledge that
they • ever have borne allegiance to any other
commonwealth.

The house in which the fugitive family was to
take up its temporary abode stood very close to
the boundary line of Sharon township, and was
still capable of being made into a fine residence
thirty-five years ago. It is melancholy to think that
after remaining unoccupied for many years, being
used in the meantime as a bam for hay, it has been
neglected and despoiled until it is now but a disman-
tled ruin. As I remember it in my girlhood, the old
mansion was a remarkably fine specimen of the best
sort of our colonial architecture. It was built of
stone and brick, of two stories and an attic above a
spacious basement, a part of which probably served
as a cellar, and the rest for slave quarters, as was the
case in other houses of similar construction and
date. At the front and rear of the second story

26o

dormer windows were set in the sides of the pic-
turesque hipped roof. On each side of the cen-
ter of a wide hall, which traversed the house from
front to rear, massive chimneys ran up above the
peak of the roof The fireplaces did not open into
the hall, but into the two big square rooms on the
south side and the one long room on the north,
which is stilt called the ball-room. The broad hall
was beautifully wainscoted, and was adorned by a
staircase which in its proportions was once a de-
light to the artistic eye. The ceilings of the first
floor were high for that day, between ten and eleven
feet, if my "memory serves. All the rooms were
large, finely proportioned, and admirably lighted
by broad and deep windows. The ample fireplaces
were surmounted by carefully finished mantel-
pieces of wood. I think that all the principal
rooms were wainscoted, and I am sure that the
window- and door-casings were of finely simple
designs. The doors themselves were well paneled,
thick, and strong, hung by the long-reaching hinges
of wrought-iron which add so much to picturesque
effect. When I saw them these had all been dis-
figured with paint, but my father has told me that
in his youth the woodwork, of the parlor at least,
was of some polished hard wood, he thought that
of the cherry.

Probably not even the house she had left, though
that was held to be fine in its day, was either finer
or more spacious than this mansion in which Mrs.

26 1

R. R. Livingston and her femily now found shel-
ter. The house had been built by a Mr. Swift, by
whom it had been sold to one of the Livingstons not
very long before the opening of the war. It is not
known precisely why Mr. Swift had abandoned the
locality, but it is believed that he was a Royalist
who had taken reftigc in Boston in 1 775, whence
he had fled when the British abandoned that city,
in company with those Tory femilies who sought
refiige in Nova Scotia.

Just how the house came to be unoccupied at
this time is not quite certain. In 1777 it belonged
to Mr. Robert Livingston, the third and, save by
courtesy, the last lord of the Upper Manor. He
appears to have loaned the house to the Clermont
party at this juncture, and at a later date he occu-
pied it himself at intervals for short periods. Some
things lead one to suppose that he and his family
may have been here at the same time with the
Clermont party. It is uncertain whether or not all
of the last-named party stayed here through the
entire winter, though some of them are known to
have done so. In the following spring we find that
Mrs. R. R. Livingston, with a fine confidence in the
bright destinies of the struggling colonies, began to
rebuild her house at Clermont. After the beginning
of the summer of 1778 the house in Salisbury was
occupied, more or less steadily, until after the close
of the war, by the &mily of Robert Cambridge
Livingston, the son of Robert of the Upper Manor.

262

I am here reminded that to readers not ^miliar
with the subject, so many Roberts among the
Livingstons may be confusing. Besides the five
Robert Livingstons mentioned in this chapter,
there were probably not less than a dozen more (of
all ages), only to be distinguished from one another
by their middle names, residences, and titles. The
same was true of the Gilberts, and to nearly the
same extent of the Johns and Henrys.

The life led by the refugees was both sad and
joyous. On the one hand, all of them had suffered
from loss and grief, and were never free from anxi-
ety in regard to the possible fate of the dear ones
in more exposed situations than their own. On
the other hand, the lives of all were necessarily too
laborious to leave room for idle repinings. Save
for boys and old men, there were few white males
left in this peaceful region. It is on record that
the stated business meetings of the Congregational
Society in Sharon were adjourned all through the
autumn of this year, "by reason yt ye great num-
ber of men in ye service of ye Country left too few
Members at home." Yet the daily needs of a large
femtly, accustomed to every luxury of the time,
were not less pressing than if there were no stress
of war.

It is traditionally related of Mrs. Livingston and
her daughter, Mrs. Montgomery, that they, with
the aid of some of the female slaves, acted as their
own coachmen and hostlers during their stay in

263

this region, in order that their men-servants might
have more time to spend in grinding meal for daily
use, and in keeping the fireplaces supplied with
wood. Besides this, the Clermont party joined in
all the patriotic labors in which the Sharon ladies
were constantly engaged. Be it remembered that
stockings for the army could not be purchased in
sufficient quantities, and love must be trusted to
supply the want. Spinning yarn and knitting
stockings, preparing bandages and scraping lint,
filled every patriotic woman's every moment that
could be spared from the daily cares of her iamily —
multitudinous cares of which we now know little.
Yet pleasure was mingled with them all. Our
great-grandmothers were as genial and as lovable
as the least burdened of their granddaughters.

Early in November, 1777, began the husking
bees. A series of them was held in the biggest
bam which had then been erected in Sharon or its
vicinity. It belonged to Captain Simeon Smith,
M.D., a physician whose military title was due to
service in the campaign of 1776, on Long Island,
and in the country around New York, under
General Washington. This bam was taken down
in my childhood, and I can just remember its wide
threshing-floor, upon which horses had in the
olden days been used to tread out the grain, and
which was so long that five loaded hay-wagons,
with horses attached, could stand in line without
difficulty.

264.

It was on this capacious threshing-floor that
many of the husking frolics were held. As soon
as the early November darkness had feUen, the
huskers gathered from far and near. To-night it
might be for Colonel Canfield's com which had
been brought here to be husked. He was with
the army of Gates, and his neighbors would help
both the colonel's &mily and their country in this
humble way. Another night it might be that of
some other patriot who was absent in the service
of his country. It was a rule, unwritten but inflex-
ible, that the planting and the harvests of the ab-
sent soldiers must take the precedence of those
who remained at home.

Before leaving their houses alt the huskers,
many of whom had considerable distance to come,
had partaken of as good a meal as their circum-
stances would permit, and all were very warmly
wrapped. Good fires were kept burning in the
wide fireplaces of Dr. Smith's large stone mansion,
and to them the huskers often resorted, each in
turn, and the work itself was warming when briskly
done ; but the nights were cold. The toil was
made as pleasurable as possible by songs and story-
telling, but the needs were too urgent to permit of
loitering over it. Men and women, b6nd and free,
boys and girls, " quality " and " commonalty,"
natives and refugees, all toiled together and with
equal cheer and earnestness.

After the evening's task was done and all had

265

adjourned to the house, the different social grades
sorted themselves apart and each " went to his own
place." In the broad and hi^ basement were the
slave quarters, where, in front of blazing logs in
wide fireplaces, they roasted potatoes in the ashes,
and partook of apples, nuts, and cider, and after-
ward were allowed to dance until their masters
summoned them to start for home. In the great
kitchen, in whose fireplace an ox might have been
roasted whole, another set enjoyed themselves in a
similar manner; and in the generous dining-room,
where a big fireplace piled high with logs of cord-
wood length filled the room with fragrance,
warmth, and cheer, still another and probably more
sumptuous repast was served.

After the supper, reels and contra-dances, where
the feet beat merrily to the entrancing strains of
the still traditionally remembered " Caius Tite's "
fiddle, gave a sportive finish to an evening which,
after all was done, had not been a long one, for all
must be up and toiling again by daybreak or be-
fore. All the manor ladies and boys, as well as
their servants, took a part as often as possible in
these pleasurable toils. So did the city divines
who shared their retreat, as well as the resident
parson, though it was thought to be etiquette for
them to retire to the parlors immediately after the
feast, that the dance might the more speedily be-
gin without the restraint of their presence.

CHAPTER XVII

A UTERARV CLUB IN 1779-81

'^^^OpP-^

CHAPTER XVII.

A UTERARY CLUB

IN 1779-81.

The "Clio."

Two Diaries.

The Sharon Literary

Club.

Canfield. Spencer.

News of Victory.

Tailors and Clothes.

Chancellor KenL

jL Noah Webster.

JL Holmes the Historian.

O O fl

o c 6

^Qo{^ Whether literary clubs were com-
€xA *VY7 O ^^" things during our Revolu-
1^ Q tionary War, there are small

mere

^ ^'j means of knowing. The

^Cjo^^^ fact that but few traces exist
does not prove that there may not have been at
least one in every township, both then and for
many years before, though the supposition would
be against such a conclusion. So great has been
the loss of old papers from fires, removals, and even
wanton destruction on the part of heirs who should
have known better, that the wonder is rather that
we know anything of the private and social life of
the colonial and Revolutionary periods than that
we know so little.

In our old garret, filling a portmanteau, and
perhaps left just as they were hastily stuffed into
it by a young Yale College graduate in 1 784, when
he was quitting the college dormitory for the last
time, was found a motley collection of letters, es-
says, translations, notes of lectures, and accounts of
expenditures. Most interesting of all, for our pres-
ent purpose, are two diaries and three odd copies

269

^70

of a manuscript publication edited by the young
collegian's sister, Juliana Smith.

" The Clio, a Literary Miscellany," was legibly
written in the script of different hands. The ink
is still of an excellent black. The large, coarse-
textured sheets of foolscap are ruled down the
center of edch page to form two columns, and the
several sheets are tied together by cords of braided,
homespun, unbleached linen thread. The three
numbers are respectively dated : "December loth,
1 780," " January 30th, 1781," and "October, 1781."
They contain odes, essays, proverbs, puzzles,
sketches, and jokes — many of the latter being of a
local coloring that has not stood the test of age.
Most of the contents, particularly the sketches,
would compare favorably with the larger part of
the printed literary matter of the periodicals of the
day. It is especially notable, considering the inter-
est in polemics which characterized the period,
that we find no reference to theological opinions.

In the same package with these manuscript
magazines were several small books of a diary kept
by the brother in college for the benefit of the
home circle, and a larger number of little books
of the same sort kept by Juliana, that her "Bro-
ther Jack " might be informed from time to time,
as opportunity for transmission should serve, of
the small happenings of home life. From both of
these simple diaries I hate gleaned many most in-
teresting details of femily and of college life, but it

is principally from Juliana's lively pages that
have been gathered the particulars of the literary
club,

Juliana seems to have had an especially strong
love both for hearing the ancestral traditions and
for committing them to paper. Within the last
eight or nine years my mother has told me that
she had often heard her husband's grand&ther —
the " Brother Jack " of the diary — state that his
mother and his sister Juliana were the most intel-
lectual and the wittiest women whom he had ever
known during a long life of social intercourse with
the best society which our Union then afforded.
They were considered especially good as narrators,
and " to have coaxed either of them into telling a
talc was to have provided the finest sort of an en-
tertainment for a winter's evening." Of the cor-
rectness of this filial and fraternal judgment there
is abundant evidence in the pages of both Juli-
ana's diary and of the " Clio." The introduction,
" Mamma says," is rarely prefixed to anything that
is unworthy of perusal both for its own sake and
for the way in which it is told, and our Julian's
signature is always something equally good.

From the diaries we learn that the " Clio " was
issued bimonthly with a praiseworthy regularity,
though often the numbers could not be sent to
New Haven until several had accumulated. A
" post-rider " was supposed to traverse the distance
between Poug^keepsie and Hartford one week, and

272

return the next, taking in the towns of Pleasant
Valley and Amenia in the State of New York, and
of Sharon and Salisbury and perhaps others in Con-
necticut on his way; but very often, for one reason
or another, he skipped a week or two, or more. The
deep snows of the winters do not seem to have so
frequently interfered with his progress as did the
heavy freshets and fathomless mud of the springs and
autumns. Probably from Hartford to New Haven
the highways were kept in better order, for be-
tween these points the "Post" was much more reli-
able. There was also a regular post from Litchfield
to New Haven, but the former place was twenty
miles of bleak hill riding from Sharon. For all
these reasons advantage was always taken of every
private means of conveying letters. In the many
thousands of letters dated prior to 1820, which I
have examined, there may be found almost as many
references to the unreliability of the post and the
superior trustworthiness of private hands. Indeed,
important letters were retained for weeks awaiting
the convenience of some traveling friend " rather
than to trust the Post."

Perhaps the disappearance of so many copies of
the " Clio " is due to the precarious means of trans-
portation, but, in view of the scarcity of printed
periodicals, it is more likely that when the little
papers were received by " brother Jack " they were
passed from hand to hand until they were worn out
or lost. The three surviving numbers — " One,"

273

"Four," and "Nineteen" — had been carefully
mended to prevent them from falling to pieces.

From the " Exordium " on the first page of " No.
One " it appears that " The Sharon Literary Club
was founded in January, 1779, the Rev. Cotton M.
Smith being Chairman and Mr. John C. Smith
["brother Jack"] being Secretary." The design
of the club was " to promote a taste for the study of
Belles Lettres and of Logick, and to gain some skill
in the useful Freeman's Art of Debate." The
stated meetings of the club were to be " held on
every Monday evening through the Year, save from
May first to October first," during which months it
may be supposed that time for such pursuits could
not be well spared from the pressing duties of
an agriculture conducted without steam-plows,
wheeled harrows, corn-planters, cultivators, mow-
ing-machines, horse-rakes, reapers and binders,
tedders and threshing-machines, to say nothing of
the numberless other implements to which we are
now so accustomed that we forget that Noah did
not find them waiting for him when he emerged
from the ark.

From the first the "Sharon Literary Club"
seems to have found favor in the little township of
its birth, and had continued its regular meetings
from January, 1779, to May, 1780, with so much
advantage that by the time for their resumption,
the first Monday in the following October, it was
"determined to establish The Clio so that the

^74

talents of the Club's members mi^t be cultivated
in writing as well as in speech." To its columns
each club-member was " expected to make at least
one contribution in every second or third number."
A lawyer named Canfield (first name illegible),
Mr. Ambrose Spencer, and Miss Juliana Smith
were named as those " to whom all essays intended
for insertion in these columns should be submitted
for due consideration " ; but by the time that the
next surviving paper was issued, Juliana's name
appears alone, although the two others continued to
contribute. " Mr. Spencer," at this time a lad of
about fifteen years, afterward married a daughter of
Judge Canfield, and became a Justice of the
Supreme Court of the State of New York.

Each issue of the " Miscellany " was read aloud
at the meeting of the club next after the paper's
date, and as "there was much lively comment on
each article," it is probable that the contents of the
"Clio" formed the chief topic of the evening, after
the stated reading of selected portions fixim certain
books which the club's members yere supposed to
have been perusing in their own homes during the
intervening days. It is interesting to know that
some of these selections were translations from
CiEsar's "Commentaries," made by Juliana's
brother ; from Plutarch's Life of Hannibal, made
by the parson and the schoolmaster; and from
Fenelon's " Telcmaque," made by Mrs. Smith and
Juliana. These translations were subject to criti-

— • .Tia t:_-

cism from the club's members, and on one
occasion, when the learned Dr. Bellamy of Bethle-
hem, Connecticut, was visiting at the parsonage,
there would seem to have been a good-natured
but rather lively sort of a discussion between the
two divines and the schoolmaster concerning the
proper rendering of certain disputed passages in
Plutarch. At least, Juliana reports that "they
became as heated over a Greek word as if it were
a forge fire."

The alternate meetings of the club were mainly
debating societies, in which old and young men
took part as debaters, and old and young women
as listeners, while, in accordance with a resolution
unanimously passed at one of the club's earliest
meetings, " all of the women and such of the men
as were not engaged in speaking or reading " were
" expected to knit stockings or do some other work
to help our brave and suffering soldiers in their
desperate struggle to gain the Liberty of our Na-
tive Land." Whether shoemaking formed one of
the patriotic industries pursued during these literary
evenings I do not know, but presume so, for, from
another source, I have found that, beginning with
the winter of 1777, and onward during the war,
the men of many Connecticut villages, including
Sharon, " had learned to make shoes so that they
might help the soldiers in the field. The State
fiimished the materials, and almost all the men in
each township, from the Ministers down to the

276

slaves, spent their winter evenings in making shoes
for the Soldiers." It must be remembered that
shoe fectories were then unknowru

In spite of her silent tongue and busy fingers, at
least one of the young women who were privileged
to listen to the wisdom of the superior sex availed
herself of her opportunities to extract abundant
amusement fiY)m the readings and discussions,
Which she reported for the benefit of her brother
and his classmates, always good-naturedly, but
sometimes keenly criticizing, and in a few instances
even caricaturing the speakers with an untrained
but clever pencil.

It is a singular fact that neither in Juliana's
diary, nor in that of her brother, nor in the surviv-
ing numbers of the " Clio," is there much mention
of the war then so actively progressing. Yet
Sharon was intensely patriotic, and had furnished
what was, proportionately, a large contingent to
the Continental forces, while the club's president
had been a chaplain in the Northern army until
disabled by a camp fever, and several of the most
active of the club's members had been officers and
privates in the patriotic armies for longer or shorter
terms before 1780, and after that date still others
took their places. The chief exception to this
ignoring of what must have been the subject of
first interest in the hearts of all is Juliaru's exulta-
tion, in April, 1 780, over the " sure news," which
then had but just reached the little inland town.

277

of the victory gained the preceding September
" by Captain Paul Jones in the little Bon Homme
Richard over the big British ship Serapis. A glo-
rious VICTORY for which God be praised ! " Per-
haps the reason for the silence on the most vital
of all the topics of the time may be found in this
very thing. With the slow means of communi-
cation, suspense, long and harrowing, was inevi-
table. Was it not, therefore, wise to divert the
mind as much as might be while working, praying,
and hoping without cessation ?

The club's meetings were "always punctually
opened at half-past seven o'clock in the evening
with a short prayer for the Divine blessing," and
they seem to have been, with equal punctuality,
closed at nine. After this refreshments were served.
If the meetings took place in almost any other
house 'than the parsonage, the refreshments were
followed by an hour of dancing. The sprightly
Juliana several times expresses her regret that, as
the parson's daughter, she was always obliged to
leave before the dancing began, "tho*, as you
know," she once naively adds, "Papa does not
think dancing to be wrong in itself, but only that
it may be a cause of offending to some."

From tradition and the materials at hand we
may paint a reasonably correct picture of one of
the meetings of this long ago literary club. We
will suppose that it is held at the parsonage. Here
three rooms are opened to the company — the

^78

parson's study, the family living-room, and the
kitchen. In all three great blazing logs of wood
are sending their cheerful heat and light princi-
pally up the broad-throated chimneys. The night
is very cold, but the guests do not feel its chill too
acutely, for the air of the rooms is so fresh that the
blood is well oxygenated. The curtains, too, arc
closely drawn, and they are not flimsy things, but
thick and heavy, made to keep the wind out, and
they are drawn over doors as well as windows.
Such curtains are usually made of a mixture of
linen and wool, homespun, home-dyed, and home-
woven, and were sometimes lined and quilted.
In the wealthiest families curtains of flowered red
chintz were often hung on the roomward side of
the heavier curtains, and sometimes, but probably
very seldom, they were all displaced by imported
satin-damask or damask-moreen, lined with wadded
and quilted silk.

Even at this late period there would not be
enough chairs to seat all the guests, for these, in
Juliana's reports to her brother, are often said to
number more than one hundred; so the forms
were brought from the schoolhouse, and were some-
times supplemented by long planks laid from one
stool or block of wood to another.

As both the study and the living-room commu-
nicated with the kitchen, which extended along
the house at the rear of both of them, and a
speaker or reader standing midway of the kitchen

^79

could easily be heard in both of the other rooms, it
is probable that here would be the chosen position.
There would be some finely dressed persons
present, for at this time there were gentlemen
and ladies of fortune and position in this retired
spot, safe firom war's alarms, and they would be
attired as became their station ; but the most would
be arrayed in clothes of home manufecture, firom
pocket-handkerchief to shoe-tie. Tailors were so
few that well-fitting coats and breeches must have
been rare. One unfortunate college student firom
this neighborhood had placed the cloth for a suit
of clothes with the local tailor in the spring, and
by the time that potentate had seen fit to finish
them, the garments had been so far outgrown
that they had to be passed over to a younger
brother; and the same thing was repeated twice,
so that the poor student must have been agonizing
in out-grown or out-worn clothes for the greater
part of his college course. For this state of things
there was no help. The tailor, having no com-
petitor within thirty miles in any direction, was
monarch of his customers. Storm and threaten
they never so sternly, they were obliged to wait
his pleasure, for they could get no better served
even by journeying long distances. The trade of
the tailor, however profitable, was despised in the
colonies, and few would engage in it. Conse-
quently, during the years preceding the war, the
larger part of the wearing apparel of even wealthy

'teat would have 1
*" noticeable

"S'SetT""
mother wer, L °" ^

^"■'^-lenceS "

•'"'^kv' fir """"■' ^

i,;ii._ . "'^' me ;,>,„_.

28l

The club's meetings were held in various houses,
from the stately " Montgomery House " on the hill
dividing Salisbury from Sharon, which was occupied
by one or another of the numerous branches of the
Livingston families during nearly the entire war,
to the brick cottage occupied by the femilies of
Robert G. Livingston and the lately deceased Philip
Livingston, which was on one side of the parsonage,
and to the broadly spreading house of Judge Can-
held on its other side. In all, seventeen dwellings
are mentioned as having at one time or another been
meeting-places for the club. Several of these still
exist, but only three of them are now occupied by
the heirs of the then owners. These three are the
"Gay House," more than a mile above the village,
the " King House," at the head o{ the beautiful
village street, and the "Smith House," in whose
garret are the papers from which we quote. All
are m good preservation and are fine specimens of
colonial architecture.

Juliana evidently possessed a good degree of
literary and editorial instinct. From the lips of
her two grandmothers and from her mother — her-
self too busy to spend much time in writing —
the young lady obtained many narratives of early
days in the colonies. To several of these she in-
cidentally refers, and some of them she wrote at
considerable length in her diary for Jack's benefit.
From these narratives she sometimes made such
extracts as she deemed suitable for the "Clio,"

282

though not as often as she (and we) would have
liked, because, as she writes to Jack : " Judge Can-
Beld seems to think that such things foster pride
and vanity, albeit, Nota Bene^ I think I do observe
now and then a morsel of those sinful emotions in
himself. Dost remember him, dear Jack % "

From her brother and his classmates Juliana was
indefatigable in begging contributions, whether in
prose or in verse, declaring that she " cared less ftjr
moral reflections than for new thoughts," and that
■* most of all " she desired " news and narratives of
things that one has not already heard or read a
thousand times. Of course," she adds, " Odes and
Sonnets would be very fine if they were poetical^
but. Oh, my dear Jack, I fear me there is very lit-
tle promise that any of your Friends will prove to
be Shakespeares or Miltons."

It must be confessed that the most of the sur-
viving contributions of the young collegians are
decidedly sophmoric in tone, and we cannot blame
the editress, who does not hesitate to inform Jack,
by way of consolation after some sharp criticisms,
that she " hopes, nay, believes, that he will be wiser
by-and-bye " ; and, after reading a certain halting
" Ode " by A. H., we are ready to confirm the
editorial opinion that " your chum " (Abiel Holmes,
afterward author of the laborious " Annals of Amer-
ican History," but better known as the fether of
Oliver Wendell Holmes) " is no doubt, as you
say, a Man of Parts, but the Pegasus he rides is a

283

Sony steed that has lost his wings and is badly
shod." Of James Kent, afterward the justly cele-
brated Chancellor Kent of the State of New York,
she says : " Mr. Kent does well, always well. He
has thoughts and does not hide them under a rub-
bish heap of words as H — s and S. B. do. . . .
I wish that your friend Daggett " (David Daggett,
afterward United States senator from Connecticut
for several terms, and a judge of high standing)
** would be so obliging as to be a more frequent
contributor; he writes wittily and without affecta-
tion."

One contribution in a surviving number of the
" Clio " is signed " Noah Webster." The future
lexicographer was then teaching a district school
in Sharon, and ** boarding round," receiving the ex-
travagant salary of three dollars a month. This I
find from the private account-book of the acting
town clerk, through whom the stipend was paid.
The somewhat hackneyed moral lesson which Mr.
Webster wished to convey was cast in the dream
form which seems to have appealed so strongly
to the fancy of the age, and is a stilted, disjointed
sort of thing ; yet it hardly deserved the little fling
of the young editress — herself, it will be remem-
bered, only nineteen :

" Mr. Webster has not the excuse of youth, (I
think he must be fully twenty two or three), but
his essays — don't be angry. Jack, — are as young

284.

as yours or brother Tommy's, while his reflections
are as prosy as those of our horse, your namesake,
would be if they were written out Perhaps more
so, for I truly believe, judging from the way yaci
Horse looks round at me sometimes, when I am on
his back, that his thou^ts of the human race and
their conduct towards his own, might be well
worth reading. At least they would be all bis muti,
and that is more than can be said of N. W.'s. . . .
In conversation he is even duller than in writing,
if that be possible, but he is a painstaking man
and a hard student. Papa says he will make his
mark ; but then, you know that our dear Papa is
always inclined to think the best of every one's
abilities, except his own and mine, of which last, I
grieve to say, his opinion seems to be sadly low.
Perhaps that is because every one says I am so
like him ; you know he is ever repeating that self-
praise is no credit ! I wish you were at home, dear
Jack, so that I might get a word of flattery now
and then. I would pay you back in your own
coin I "

A club-member whose contributions pleased the
critical Juliana much better than those of the
future lexicographer was a Mr. Beecher, who was
in some way related to the subsequently celebrated
Rev. Lyman Beecher. He was perhaps a brother
of the latter's father. None of his papers appear
in the still-existing numbers of the "Clio," and

285

perhaps he did not write many, but he was always
an active member of the club. " Mr. Beecher is,"
says Juliana, **the life of our Debates. Every
thing he utters is to the point, forcible, pungent,
and often so witty that we are in convulsions of
laughter. Papa says he is one who would become
great, an he had the opportunity. As it is, though
he is not great, he well fills his lot in life and is
somewhat of a power in our little community."
In another place she writes: "Mr. Beecher was
on what I conceive to be the wrong side of the
question last night, but I must concede that his
remarks were full of force, fire and persuasion.
What a pity that he could not receive the advan-
tages which are now being, as it seems to me,
wasted on P. L. Jr ! I believe that Mr. B. would
make a preacher of extraordinary eloquence."

On at least one occasion there was present a
young surgeon of the Continental troops, probably
home on leave of absence. Dr. Wheeler, after-
ward of Redhook on the Hudson, may have been
drawn to Sharon by the charms of Elizabeth,
Juliana's sister, whom he subsequently married,
but where they first met does not appear. In 1 782
we find in Juliana's diary the first mention of one
who not long after became the controlling influence
in her life. "This evening," she says, "our de-
bates were enlivened by the presence of a young
gentleman who came in with Judge Canfield and
his daughters. He is very handsome in person and

286

courtly in manners. His remarks were received
with much fevor, even the carping P. L. being
heard to say that Mr. Radcliffs speech ' was not
intolerable.' I fear me he would not have con-
ceded as much to one of ourselves. Mr. L. never
has any faith in home born prophets."

After this, Mr. Radcliff's name is mentioned a
good many times, but — or at least so it seems in
the light of future events — with an ever-increas-
ing reticence. Whatever may have been the oc-
casion which first drew the young gentleman to
Sharon, there is no doubt that the reason for sub-
sequent visits was to be found in the attractions of
the handsome and quick-witted Juliana. Until
after the peace the time was not propitious for
members of the legal profession, and the betrothed
couple had to spend two and perhaps more years
of happy, hopeful waiting. Almost immediately
after the peace young Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Rad-
cliff began to live in Albany, New York, where in
time he became one of the judges of the Supreme
Court of Judicature. At a later period they re-
moved to New York city, of which Mr. Radcliff
was mayor for three terms between 1810 and 1818.

Apparently from about 1790 the RadcIifFs had a
summer home on the banks of the Hudson. " Chest-
nut Hill " was not far from Poughkeepsie. At
this home Mr. and Mrs. Radcliff entertained largely
and handsomely, and the name of the hostess is
often mentioned in domestic chronicles of that date
as that of one of the most charming members of

287

the notedly charming society which gathered along
the banks of what used then to be so affectionately
termed "the River." The "literary evenings at
the Radcliffs of Chestnut Hill " are mentioned in
published and in unpublished letters written by
Chancellor Kent, Eklward Livingston, Chancellor
Livingston, and Mrs. Janet Montgomery, as stated
and delightful gatherings where youth and age,
^hion and wit, met for pleasure and improvement.
It is not too much to assume that the idea for these
gatherings was taken from the literary club which
had been so great a social and mental resource to
the members of an inland country parson's parish
at an earlier date.

Tradition tells us that after the marriage of the
young editress the " Clio " ceased to appear, but
that the club continued in active operation for
twenty or more years later. I have found no rec-
ord of this, but in a few instances certain allusions
in private correspondence countenance tradition.

It has several times been affirmed that the first
purely literary club in the United States was the one
which was started by Mrs. Lydia H. Sigoumey in
Hartford, Connecticut, in the early years of the
present century. Our records prove that the one
in Sharon was very much earlier, and it is probable
that others had preceded it ; but until some other
claimant shall arise we may continue to give to
the beautiful little village of Sharon, Connecticut,
the honor of being the mother of literary clubs in
the United States.

CHAPTER XVIII

NEW ENGLAND'S FESTIVE DAY

«9

"jHE following account of a Thanks-

T. / giving dinner in 1779 is given in
W a letter of Juliana Smith's, copied
\\ by her into her diary — a praise-
^.■« I worthy practice not uncommon
when letters were written with care and might
easily be lost in transmission. This letter was
addressed to its writer's "Dear Cousin Betsey."
Who the latter may have been I do not know,
but presume that she was a daughter of the Rev
C. M. Smith's elder brother Dan.

After the usual number of apologies for delay in
writing, Juliana proceeds:

"When Thanksgiving Day was apprdaching
our dear Grandmother Smith \^nee Jerusha
Mather, great-granddaughter of the Rev. Richard
Mather of Dorchester, Massachusetts], who is
sometimes a little desponding of Spirit as you well
know, did her best to persuade us that it would be
better to make it a I^y of Fasting & Prayer in
view of the IVickedness of our Friends & the Ftleness
of our Emmies, I am sure you can hear Grandmo-

292

ther say that and see her shake her cap border.
But indeed there was some occasion for her re-
marks, for our resistance to an unjust Jutbority has
cost our beautiful Coast Towns very dear the last
year & all of us have had much to suffer. But
my dear Father brought her to a more proper
Irame of Mind, so that by the time the Day came
she was ready to enjoy it almost as well as Grand-
mother Worthington did, & she, you will remem-
ber, always sees the bright side. In the mean
while we had all of us been working hard to get
all things in readiness to do honour to the Day.

" This year it was Uncle Simeon's turn to have
the dinner at his house, but of course we all helped
them as they help us when it is our turn, & there
is always enough for us all to do. All the baking
of pies & cakes was done at our house & we had
the big oven heated & filled twice each day for
three days before it was all done. & everything was
GOOD, though we did have to do without some
things that ought to be used. Neither Love nor
(paper) Money could buy Raisins, but our good red
cherries dried without the pits, did almost as well
& happily Uncle Simeon still had some spices in
store. The tables were set in the Dining Hall and
even that big room had no space to spare when we
were all seated. The Servants had enough ado
to get around the Tables & serve us all without
over-setting things. There were our two Grand-
mothers side by side. They are always handsome

^93

old Ladies, but now, many thought, they were
handsomer than ever, & happy they were to look
around upon so many of their descendants. Uncle
& Aunt Simeon presided at one Table, & Father &
Mother at the other. Besides us five boys & girls
there were two of the Gales & three Elmers, be-
sides James Browne & Ephraim Cowles. [Five
of the last-named seven were orphans taught and
in all ways provided for by Parson & Mrs. Smith.]
We had them at our table because they could be
best supervised there. Most of the students had
gone to their own homes for the week, but Mr.

Skiff & Mr. [name illegible] were too far

away from their homes. They sat at Uncle
Simeon's table & so did Uncle Paul & his
family, five of them in all, & Cousins Phin
& Poll [probably Phineas and Apollos Smith,
sons of Dan]. Then there were six of the Liv-
ingston family next door. They had never seen
a Thanksgiving Dinner before, having been used
to keep Christmas Day instead, as is the wont
in New York Province. Then there were four
Old Ladies who have no longer Homes or Chil-
dren of their own & so came to us. They were
invited by my Mother, but Uncle and Aunt
Simeon wished it so.

"Of course we could have no Roast Beef.
None of us have tasted Beef this three years back
as it all must go to the Army, & too little they
get, poor fellows. But, Nayquittymaw's Hunters

i2i

were able to get us a fine red Deer, so that we had
a good haunch of Venisson on each Table. These
were balanced by huge Chines of Roast Pork at
the other ends of the Tables. Then there was on
one a big Roast Turkey & on the other a Goose,
& two big Pigeon Pasties. Then there was an
abundance of good Vegetables of all the old Sorts
& one which I do not believe you have yet seen.
Uncle Simeon had imported the Seede from Eng-
land just before the War began & only this Year
was there enough for Table use. It is called Sel-
lery & you eat it without cooking. It is very
good served with meats. Next year Uncle Sim-
eon says he will be able to raise enough to give us
all some. It has to be taken up, roots & all &
buried in earth in the cellar through the winter &
only pulling up some when you want it to use.

"Our Mince Pies were good although we had
to use dried Cherries as I told you, & the meat
was shoulder of Venisson, instead of Beef The
Pumpkin Pies, Apple Tarts & big Indian Pud-
dings lacked for nothing save Appetite by the time
we had got round to them.

" Of course we had no Wine. Uncle Simeon
has still a cask or two, but it must all be saved for
the sick, & indeed, for those who are well, good
Cider is a sufficient Substitute. There was no
Plumb Pudding, but a boiled Suet Pudding,
stirred thick with dried Plumbs & Cherries, was
called by the old Name & answered the purpose.

All the other spice had been used in the Mince
Pies, so for this Pudding we used a jar of West
India preserved Ginger which chanced to be left
of the last shipment which Uncle Simeon had from
there, we chopped the Ginger small and stirred it
through with the Plumbs & Cherries. It was
extraordinary good. The Day was bitter cold &
when we got home from Meeting, which Father
did not keep over long by reason of the cold, we
were glad eno' of the fire in Uncle's Dining Hall,
but by the time the dinner was one half over
those of us who were on the fire side of one Table
was forced to get up & carry our plates with us
around to the £ir side of the other Table, while those
who bad sat there were as glad to bring their plates
around to the fire side to get warm. All but the
Old Ladies who had a screen put behind their
chairs."

Here it may be allowed to break in upon Juli-
ana's narrative to explain that the hall in which
this dinner was laid, now long used as a kitchen,
is a room about thirty feet long from north to
south and twenty-two feet wide. A glazed door
and a window open upon piazzas from each
end. On the westem side a broadly hospitable
door opens into the staircase hall of the main
building, while in the dining-room itself another
flight of stairs ascended fi-om the same side to the
wing's chambers. On the eastern side is the im-

296

mense chimney, where once yawned a fireplace that
" would comfortably hold a fiill sled load of ei^t
foot logs." With such a fire it is no wonder that
the guests seated near it were glad to exchange
places with the others, who — probably half freez-
ing — were on the other side of the room. When
I was about seven or eight years old the heavy
ceiling beams, darkened with age and smoke, were
hidden away from view by a plaster ceiling. I
pleaded in vain for the " pretty brown beams " to
be lefr in sight, but my grandmother was inflexible,
and no doubt, in the interest of comfort for her
servants, she was quite right to close the drafry
fireplace and lower the lofry ceiling. Nevertheless
it was a pity, and I have never ceased to regret it

" Uncle Simeon," proceeds Juliana, " was in
his best mood, and you know how good that is !
He kept both Tables in a roar of laughter with his
droll stories of the days when he was studying
medicine in Edinborough, & afterwards he &
Father & Uncle Paul joined in singing Hymns &
Ballads. You know how fine their voices go
together. Then we all sang a Hymn & after-
wards my dear Father led us in prayer, remember-
ing all Absent Friends before the Throne of Grace,
& much I wished that my dear Betsey was here as
one of us, as she has been of yore.

" We did not rise from the Table until it was
quite dark, & then when the dishes had been

297

cleared away we all got round the fire as close as
we could, & cracked nuts, & sang songs & told
stories. At least some told & others listened.
Tou knew nobody can exceed the two Grandmothers
at telling tales of all the things they have seen
themselves, & repeating those of the early years
in New Ejigland, & even some in the Old Eng-
land, which they had heard in their youth fix)m
their Elders. My Father says it is a goodly cus-
tom to hand down all worthy deeds & traditions
firom Father to Son, as the Israelites were com-
manded to do about the Passover & as the In-
dians here have always done, because the Word
that is spoken is remembered longer than the one
that is written. . . • Brother Jack, who did
not reach here until late on Wednesday though he
had left College very early on Monday Moming
& rode with all due diligence considering the snow,
brought an orange to each of the Grand-Mothers,
but, Alas! they were frozen in his saddle bags.
We soaked the frost out in cold water, but I guess
they was n't as good as they should have been."

CHAPTER XIX

A SNOW-SHOE JOURNEY

CHAPTER XIX.

A SNOW-SHOE JOURNEY.

A Blizzard in 1779.

Litchfield's Busy Days.

Judge Tapping Reeve
and Family.

From Litchfield to Wood-
bury on Snow-shoes.

Parson Benedict.

pROTHER JACK" has left among
his papers a relation, written in
1844* for the benefit of his grand-
children, in which he refers to the
same Thanksgiving day of which
Juliana wrote, but dwells more particularly upon
the return journey to New Haven, on which his
&ther accompanied him. He writes ;

"After the day of praise and feasting came two
days of visiting pleasantly among our neighbors,
all of whom made themselves very agreeable to
me as one who had come ftom a &r country. On
Sunday there were two services, which, I suppose
would now be called very long, though my Father
would never allow himself to preach as long ser-
mons as were then customary, unless carried away
by his feelings, which sometimes happened when
the news fi^m the posts of danger was recent and
exciting. There was no hesitation about preach-
ing political sermons in those days. Ministers
would have deemed themselves to have entirely
fiiiled of their duty, had they not expressed their

302

J '

I
f

views in regard to what was right and wrong on pi
lie questions as well as on any other. My Fad
had served one campaign as Chaplain to Coloi
Hinman's regiment of Connecticut troops and
turned invalided ; but perhaps he served his Cov
try best by staying at his post He worked hs
both in his own harvest fields and in those of 1
parishoners to raise grain for the armies;
cared for the families of those who were at t
front, and he helped to keep the fires of patri^
ism glowing by his exhortations from the pulj

*' Although early in the season the sleighing h
already been good for a fortnight, and the sm
was again falling when we set out very early
Monday morning, my Father and I, in our I
box sleigh, well wrapped in robes of long wool
sheep-skins, and drawn by two old farm hors
not the best because the best had gone to t
army. Fine as the sleighing was in the immedi^
neighborhood of Sharon, we found the roads bac
drifted long before we reached what is now El
worth. At that point, only about five miles fix
home, we had to leave our sleigh in the care of c
of my Father's parishoners, while we pursued c
journey on horseback. In those days no one tn
elled in any sort of a vehicle without taking alo
saddles for use in emergency. It was dark befi
we reached Litchfield and the snow-laden wi
was piercingly cold.

" Judge Tapping Reeve, though much youn

3Q3

than my Father, was one of the latter's choice
friends, and it was at his home diat by previous
arrangement we were to pass the night. Judge
Reeve was both a good and a great man as well as
one of the most eloquent speakers who ever
adorned die Bar of his own or any other State.
Five years later than this I was one of the earliest
students in his law-school, started in 1784, and
since become so famous. From it have been
graduated upwards of one hundred lawyers, among
them being some of our most distinguished
statesmen.

" It was on this delightful evening, when we
were all sitting round the roaring fire in the broad
fire-place of Mrs. Reeve's pleasant sitting room,
and while we were listening to the elevating con-
versation between Judge Reeve and my Father,
that I made up my mind that the Law should be
my profession. Before this time I had hesitated,
but now I felt sure that an honest man could do
as much good in this profession as in any other.
My Father and the Judge fully coincided in senti-
ment, especially in wishing to supercede by a bet-
ter that portion of the old English Common Law
which takes away all property rights from married
women. Both of them had shown their faith by
their works. Both my Mother and Mrs. Reeve
had inherited small fortunes and had been allowed
by dieir husbands to retain the control of dieir own
property ; a thing almost unheard of at that time in

304

1^:

cases where no ante-nuptial settlements had b«
made. The views of both men as I heard thei
stated at this time were afterwards clearly set fon
by Judge Reeve in his celebrated pamphlet c
'The Domestic Relations.' This was the fir
voice ever publicly raised in our country, and pe
haps in any other, in behalf of the property rig^
of married women, and attracted much attentic
both ^vourable and un&vourable. Judge Ree^
stood almost alone on this point among the lai
yers of his day ; but in his school he made man
disciples.

" Mrs. Reeve also took a part in this discussic
and fully vindicated her right to do so by tl
intellectual ability she manifested as might t
expected from a person of her lineage. Jud^
Reeve was always noted as a model husband ar
it was no wonder with such a wife as his. Mi
Reeve was sister to Colonel Aaron Burr, and po
sessed all the latter's great intellectual powers an
wonderful personal attractions without one of h
faults. She was nearly always in delicate heall
which forced her to lead a very secluded life, bi
she had every qualification to have placed h
among those women who have been most note
for goodness, grace, beauty and wit.

" I seem to myself to see her now as she a
peared that night. She was still but a yout
matron and in the full flush of a beauty that w
less of feature than of expression. I thought th<

3Q5

and I think now, that Mrs. Reeve was one of those
women to whom it is an honour to any man to
bow in deference. She had inherited the faculty
of close logic which distinguished her Grandfather,
the great Dr. Jonathan Edwards, and the persua-
sive grace of her Fadier, the Rev. Dr. Burr, of
Princeton. She was small and slight, with a daz-
zling complexion, clear cut features and deep gray
eyes that under any intellectual excitement be-
came brilliant Her smile was irresistible. At
least it so seemed to me on that first interview
when I was but fourteen years of age. After-
wards, during the years that I studied in Judge
Reeve's office and had my home in his household,
the impression became fixed, and I believe it
was the same with every succeeding student who
had the privilege of being admitted into that
family circle.

" During the night the storm increased in vio-
lence and in the morning it was impossible to see
many feet from the door on account of the whirling
masses of a snow so hard, dry and powdery that
it cut into die face like fine iron filings. To pro-
ceed on our journey was clearly impossible. Nei-
ther man nor beast could long have endured the
intense cold and the friction of the icy snow, even
if it had been possible for any one to keep the di-
rection in the blinding storm. In traversing tlir
short distance from the house to the bam to attrnd
to the wants of our animals, over a path hardly

3o6

more than twenty yards long and partly sheltered
by the wood-shed, we were almost blinded and
bewildered.

" All that day and fa.T into the night of Tuesday
we piled logs upon the kitchen fire, for in that
room alone was it possible to maintain a comforta-
ble degree of warmth. Fortunately there was
space enough for us all to sit without disturbing
the labours of the servants in preparing our meals.
As no one could be allowed to remain idle in such
times of pressing need, my Father and I helped to
mould bullets for the soldiers' muskets, while gen-
tle Mrs. Reeve sat busily knitting on yam stock-
ings for their feet. The wind blew so fiercely
down through all the other chimneys in the house
that it was impossible to light the fires in them.
It is under such circumstances that characters are
displayed without disguise, and Judge and Mrs.
Reeve then seemed, what I afterwards proved
them to be, genial, courteous and kind : making
light of every difficulty, and by their hearty
warmth of welcome and their sparkling wit mak-
ing that day and evening among the happiest rec-
ollections of a lifetime which has held as many
joys and as few sorrows as may fall to the lot of
mortals.

" On Wednesday the sun rose bright and clear
over a dazzling desert of snow. The lower win-
dows of most of the houses were hidden beneath
great piles of drift. In some cases even the second

307

story windows were hidden, or only visible through
openings in the drift like the hooded bastions of
some icy fort Looking from the garret windows
of Judge Reeve's house as £ir as the eye could
reach we could see no trace of road or path.
Fences and shrubs were obliterated. Trees, some
looking like mountains of snow and some like
naked and broken skeletons, arose here and there.
And in the village only rising wreadis of smoke
told that life existed in die half buried houses.
The Meeting House spire was on one side decked
by the icy snow with fantastic semblances of marble
statuary over which the new long, black lightning
rod (the first one I had ever seen) had been twisted
by the wind until it looked like a Chinese char-
acter. The Meeting House, where on Sunday the
Rev. Judah Champion thundered his rousing ap-
peals to the patriotism of his congregation; the
great house for the reception of military stores on
North Street, and the Army Work-Shop, where
blacksmiths, gunsmiths and the makers of saddles
and harness were constantly working for the troops,
were the only buildings which were large enough
to serve as land-marks to any but the natives of the
place under this bewildering confusion of snow.
The military guard which was always stationed to
protect diese valuable buildings, on this day omit-
ted their customary drills to take their places in
the * Shovel Brigade * which was organized to dig
out the beleagured inhabitants. One might sup-

3°8

pose that we were in Lapland or Iceland, so strange
and frozen did everything look; so vast seemed
the desert of snow which even on a level was found
to be several feet in depth and was everywhere
covered with a frozen crust.

" ' Now we shall have the pleasure of keeping
you for a week at least,' said Judge Reeve, heartily
clasping my Father's hand.

" ' Yes,' said dear Mrs. Reeve, giving me a kindly
look, ' yes, my dear boy, you will not get back to
your classes this week.*

" I was both enchanted and miserable. To stay
in this beautiful home would be most delightful
To lose the time from my classes would be almost
unendurable. My Father settled the matter by
asking quietly if our host could not get us each
a pair of snow shoes.

" At first our hosts treated this request as a pleas-
antry, but when they perceived that my Father
was quite in eamest their dismay was amusing.
The general habit of using snow shoes, which at a
very early period had been adopted from the In-
dians, had already nearly disappeared, but down to
a comparatively recent period there had been a
few persons who continued to use them in places
where there were no interruptions from fences.
My Father, a slight but sinewy and most athletic
man, had spent two or three years of his early life
as teacher in a school which had been recently
established for the instruction of Indians in Stock-

3Q9

bridge, Massachusetts, and there he had joined in
all the athletic sports of the natives, gaining a great
influence among them by his prowess in running,
leaping and wrestling. (It has nothing to do with
our present purpose, but my descendants may like
to know that the marks reached by my Father,
when a student at Yale, for running and standing
leaps, were kept as the highest attained by any
student on the college Campus. No one else had
been able to reach the same until I did so in my
Senior year.)

" It was among the Indians that my Father had
learned to use the snow shoes with great skill and
as much grace as the unwieldy things would
permit, but I could never see him or any
one else on them without an inclination to laugh
which was sometimes stronger than my filial
reverence. But, as my Father had a strong vein
of humour, he always rather joined in my mirth
than rebuked me for it Fore-seeing that there
might be some occasion on which this somewhat
unusual accomplishment might prove of service,
my Father had taught me also to become moder-
ately expert in the use of snow shoes.

" Fortunately Judge Reeve had stored away in
his garret, more as a curiosity than for any use that
he expected to be made of them, two pairs of
snow shoes of the finest Indian manu&cture, so
that we had not to spend any time in searching for
them, and by nine o'clock on Wednesday mom-

ing we climbed out of an upper story window upon
the hard crust of (co2en snow and started off with
no other burden than the light, but cumbersome
snow shoes attached to our feet, and a small roll
like a knapsack, fastened to each of our backs.

" I was a boy of unusual strength for my years,
and my Father, although a Parson, was remarkable
for his vigor, but I can assure you that we were
both of us thankful when at nightfeU we reached
the little town of Bethlehem and the hospitable
abode of my Father's very dear friend, the Rev.
Dr. Joseph Bellamy. Although the distance ts a
little more than ten miles as the crow flies, it had
seemed a long journey and I had never been so
tired before.

" On Thursday the roads continuing impassable
we could not abandon our snow shoes, though they
made our ankles ache so that we could hardly
stand upon them. The air was of a clear, still
cold that would have been severe if we had not
been exercising ourselves so greatly. Even as it
was our dread-naughts [these were caped coats of
exceedingly thick homespun cloth, belted around
the waist and descending well below the knees]
were none too warm.

" Our second day's journey on the snow shoes
was much like the first, and of about the same
length, bringing us to Woodbury and the house
of the Rev. Noah Benedict where we were entei^
tained with warm hospitality. Mr. Benedict was

3^^

a peace making man in his congregation, and his
gentle spirit long influenced the manners and the
actions of the people of his flock. But in public
matters he was as war-like as any of us. Wood-
bury, like Litchfield, was a place for the collection
and storage of the supplies for the patriot armies.
Here we found the streets, running each way from
the Meeting House, piled high on either side for
a hundred yards or more with barrels and hogs-
heads of pork, beef, lard and flour, besides great
quantities of bales of blankets, tents and clothing
for the troops. All these now made miniature
mountains under the snow. Almost all the able
bodied male inhabitants more than seventeen years
of age were enrolled in the armies, and the work
pertaining to the stores was carried on by the
women and children under the direction of a few
old men. Many shoes were made in this place for
the troops. Parson Benedict had himself been
taught to make them that he might assist in the
work. On this evening the women of the family
were paring apples to dry for the army use and as
my Father and I could not assist Mr. Benedict and
the men servants in shoemaking we took our part
in the apple paring. And a very merry and de-
lightful evening we all had together, for to work
with a good will is a sure road to happiness, let our
circumstances be as untoward as they may.

** Friday moming found the temperature greatly
modified, and, by the time we had accomplished

3^^

the first five or six miles of our journey toward
New Haven we found ourselves in an evil case,
for the snow was beginning to get wet and soft
and held down the four foot length of snow shoe
so that at every step it became harder to lift our
feet Glad enough were we when at last we
reached an inn where the accommodations were
poor enough, but where we could at least get a lit-
tle refreshment for ourselves and were able to leave
the snow shoes to await some later opportunity to
be returned to Judge Reeve, and to hire horses to
ride upon to New Haven. From this point the
snow was not nearly so deep and we had but little
trouble in making, by eight in the evening, the
eighteen miles to the house of the Rev. Dr.
Daggett, the venerable ex-President of Yale
College ; which house was almost a second home
to us.

" Tired as I had been the day before, I found
myself still more so to-night; but my Father
would not allow me to complain, saying that I
should never make a soldier who could serve his
country, as our soldiers were now doing, if I gave
out so easily. Never-the-less, I observed that my
Father was himself very lame for the next few
days and by no means in haste to depart for home
again as he would otherwise have been. I have
never regretted the experience, — since no harm
save a few days of stiff joints and sore bones
came of it, — but I think that my Mother's re-

3^3

mark when she heard of it showed much com-
mon sense: —

" * A week or two more or less would not have
spoiled our Johnny's prospects, and lung fevers
might have destroyed both your lives. / say,
leave Indian ways to Indian folk/

" * Never-the-less,' answered my Father, with a
merry twinkle in the eye, • never-the-less, my dear,
I observe that when you have anything to do
you brook no delays and you shirk no labour.
Your wisdom seems rather to be for others than
for yourself

•*My Mother shook her head slightly and
walked away, turning to say over her shoulder, —
•And would you have the Great-granddaughter
of Captain John Gallup any more timorsome than
her husband ? ' ''

CHAPTER XX

A NEW YORK EVENING FROLIC

"OoP"

CHAPTER XX.

A NEW YORK
EVENING FROUC.

Mr. David Codwise Tells

of an Evening at the
Rhinelander Homestead.
Candles and Candle-
dipping.
The Supper.
The " File Dance."
The Parting Cup.

h^'

?O^O^^N 1796 Mr. David Codwise, my
w O great-uncle by his marriage with
I my paternal grandmother's sister,
V O ^^''*'*^ Livingston, was a boy of

^^Jo^^^ sixteen and a student in Columbia
College. When he gave me the following story
of an evening's frolic he was about eighty-two, in
an "anecdotage" which rendered him very in-
teresting to at least one of his frequent listeners.
He was a lifelong resident of his native city,
and knew the history of every important build-
ing and person in it, but among all his narra-
tives few interested me more than that of the
"candle-dip frolic."

Among the masses of old papers in my posses-
sion I find no trace of the use of lamps for burn-
ing any sort of oil previous to 1760. This, of
course, docs not prove that they did not exist, but
only that probably candles were the chief illuminat-
ing power. In bills of household supplies I find
always a certain quantity of wax candles, but the
imported article at four English shillings the pound
(in 1762) must obviously have been kept for fts-
317

ill

tive occasions only. It is probable that the wax
from the combs of both the wild and the domestic
bees was used for home-made mold candles, as in
New England was also the wax from the green
and fragrant bayberries ; but the main dependence
must have been the tallow dips, and even these
could not have been very freely used by any but
the well-to-do. Tallow candles were not supers
seded by wax even in the Grand Opera House of
Paris until during the Regency, 1715-23.

Candle-dipping was one of the employments of
every winter, and sometimes became an enjoyment
also. The special candle-dipping of which my
uncle told was at the home of a certain Miss
Rhinelander, for whom he ever retained a tender
memory.

The scene was an immense kitchen. Between
the heavy ceiling beams, darkened and polished
by the years of kindly smoke, hung bunches of
dried herbs and of ears of com for popping. A
large portion of one side of the room was taken
up by a fireplace so big that there was space for a
seat at each end after piles of logs four or five feet
in length had begun to send their blaze up the
wide chimney throat. These seats were stone
slabs set in the side walls of the fireplace, and —
as seats — were only used by persons who came
in literally dripping with rain or melting snow.
Usually the slabs were employed as resting-places
for things to be kept hot without burning. Ad-

3'9

joining the fireplace was the great brick oven.
Over the blaze swung long-armed cranes support-
ing immense brass kettles, their outsides already
blackening with smoke, although only a few hours
earlier they had been scoured to a dazzling bright-
ness. The floor, "as white as a wooden trencher,"
was sprinkled with shining sand. Mr. Codwisc
did not remember that there was any light be-
yond that supplied by the blazing logs. The
whitewashed walls were decorated with evergreen
boughs.

Down the center, the longest way of the room,
were two long ladders lying side by side, sup-
ported at either end upon blocks of wood about
" chair-seat high." Under each ladder, at intervals
of a foot or so apart, stood a row of big three-
footed iron pots and of footless brass kettles like
those over the fire. On the floor, between the
pots and the ketdes, were placed dripping-pans
and other vessels, both to protect the floor from
grease and to prevent waste of tallow. On either
side of each recumbent ladder was a row of chairs,
placed as closely together as possible. Before the
merrymakers were seated — John by Molly and
Peter by Sally — big and jolly black Castor and
Pollux had lifted from the fire the brass kettles
full of melted tallow, and deftly poured their con-
tents to the depth of two or three inches more than a
long candle's length upon the water with which the
similar vessels on the floor were already half filled.

As soon as the young folks were seated, black=
Phyllis and Chloe, dressed in butternut homespui^
with white kerchiefs over the shoulders, and weary-
ing red-and-yellow plaided turbans, deftly handeca
the candle rods, four or five to each person. Fror^
each rod were suspended the wicks of twisted co^
ton yam which it had been the task of the yout^^
lady hostess and her friends to prepare during tt>e
previous afternoon.

The first dippings were rather solemn a&irs
Much depended upon starting right. The least
crook in the wick, if not straightened, insured a
crooked candle; and crooked candles were
drippy things, burning unevenly, and guttering in
a way most vexatious to the good housennfe.
About six wicks were upon each rod. They must
not hang too closely together, or, like too thickly
planted trees, they would interfere with each other
as they grew. They must not be too fer apart, or
there would not be room enough for all to be
plunged evenly in the kettles. The wicks on each
rod were dipped carefully their entire length in
the kettle nearest to the right hand of the person
dipping, the wicks necessarily passing through the
melted tallow resting on top of the water, and
acquiring with each dip a thin layer of the tallow.
The tallow in the kettles was frequently replen-
ished, that the wicks might never be allowed to
touch the water, lest a spluttering candle should
result. Candle-dipping must not be retarded, and

3^'

it could not be hurried. Slowly the wicks were
immersed in the tallow, and then the loaded rods
were hung in the spaces between the kettles and
over the empty pans to allow the growing candles
to harden before being dipped again and again
until the proper circumference had been attained.

Probably two pairs of industrious hands, having
six kettles between them, could easily have com-
pleted as many candles in three hours as six pairs
could have done under the merrymaking conditions;
but then, where would have been the fun of the
thing ? There is an old Dutch proverb to the effect
that "life's employments are life's enjoyments," and
there is abundant proof that our happily constituted
Dutch ancestors made enjoyments of the most pro-
saic employments. Certainly there was pleasure
enough at this candle-dipping frolic, in the house
of a wealthy citizen, and attended by the youthful
ilite of the little city only one century ago. Their
present-day successors can get no more at no
matter what may be the chosen amusement of
the hour.

It is not probable that candle-dipping bees were
by any means a usual festivity in or very near New
York city as late as the latter part of the eigh-
teenth century. Rather should it be supposed that
the evening at the Rhinelander mansion was a
revival of an ancient custom, just as one occasion-
ally hears in our day of some fashionable group of
merrymakers holding a corn-husking bee in a barn

3^2

which may be finer than the dwellings of th(
ancestors. Even so, it is a proof that when b
New York was little New Amsterdam, caiid!
dipping had been one of its recognized festiviiie;
and it Is for this reason that it is here introduced.

On this occasion each swain, as well as maidei
was provided with a huge apron of checked iinei
and had full over-sleeves of the same materia
closed at the wrists and above the elbows by dran
ing-strings, in order that no traces of soil migl
afterward be found upon the silken hose and tl
fine cloth knee-breeches of the young men, or c
the soft hanging, somewhat scanty folds of t!
stuff gowns of the young women, or on the lint
ruffles and delicate laces which were worn alike 1
both. At such industrial gatherings as this vt
vets and silks were worn by neither sex, but lac<
being washable, were permitted.

Thirty-two couples took part in that eveninj
candle-dipping ; and if my great-uncle's opinii
was trustworthy, all the girls were beautiful ai
graceful, and all the youths were gallant and har
some. A portrait of Mr. Codwise when a you
man (taken by Earle) shows him as a very bar
some, dark-eyed youth. I used often to look
from the dear old face under an ugly wig, regai
ing me with such kindly eyes, to the bright-ey*
curly-headed portrait on the wall, and could fi
a trace of resemblance only in the lines of i
brow and the aquiline nose with its strong si

323

gestion of a terminating hook. In the eyes of
youth there is something incredible in so great a
change. To the dear old man, as he dwelt upon
the pleasures and companions of his youth, all of
them bore the same charms as in those happy
days. Unfortunately, I did not record their names,
but remember that there were Rutherfords, Mor-
rises, Lawrences, Livingstons, Gracies, Stevenses,
Stuyvesants, Schuylers, Evertsons, Beeckmans,
Polhemuses, and Starrs among them, these names
J>eing impressed by associations of one sort or an-
other, while others have escaped my memory.

Of all who were present at this particular festi-
val, "Gitty" (Gertrude) Rhinelander, the young
hostess, seemed to have been the sweetest and the
prettiest; and while the old gentleman always
smiled as he spoke of her, there was often a tear
in his faded eye while he sighed, '* Poor Gitty ! "
Why she was thus pitied as well as admired I ever
wondered, but had not the courage to inquire,
fancying always that she had met an early death,
and that a part of my good great-uncle's loyal
heart had been buried with her.

An evening of this sort of combined work and
fun began as early as six o'clock ; and even so the
aprons and over-sleeves could not be doffed and
the supper begin much before ten o'clock. Sub-
stantial things were those Knickerbocker suppers !
Besides almost every seasonable variety of cold
fowl and game, there were cold roasts of beef and

spare-rib, and platters piled high with hot sausages
and roUichies, while there was a great variety of
pasties and boundless stores of sweetmeats and
cake, placed all at once upon the big mahogany )
tables supported by many slender legs. Tea was
never seen at late suppers, and coffee but rarely.
Wines, principally Madeira, were plentifully
served, though punch and egg-nog were the main
reliance. General testimony seems to fiivor the
tradition that while the Dutch were very generous
providers of the wherewithal to make merry the
hearts of the friends within their gates, neither
they nor their guests of Dutch descent often be-
came more than agreeably exhilarated. Mr. Cod-
wise maintained that the same could not always be
said of those of English, Scotch, or Irish birth or
parentage.

After the supper came the dancing. There
was no music save the fiddles of Castor and Pol-
lux ; but was that not enough ? Have ever feet
tripped more merrily than to the rollicking scrape
of some inspired old wool-thatched fiddler, sway-
ing to his own strains, and calling out the figures
in clear, rich tones that harmonized with his wild
dance measure as only his could do?

The closing dance, which always began at mid-
night, was perhaps brought from Holland by
the first settlers. Mr. Codwise said that it was
thought to be very old in his time, and considered
to be the proper termination of festivities on all

3^5

evening occasions. I am not aware of any exist-
ing description of it save his own, as I took it
from his lips. It was called the " Fire Dance,"
and, if possible, was always ^^ danced around a
chimney."

In the Rhinelander house — which I imagine
may have been the farmstead near the East River
and the present Eighty-sixth Street and Second
Avenue — there was then a central chimney-stack,
which, on the ground floor, was triangular in shape.
On one side of it the great kitchen and its pantries
extended through the entire width of the house,
the fireplace occupying the center of the inner
wall. On the other side of the chimney the space
was divided into two large connecting rooms, each
having a fireplace across one corner. Any num-
ber of couples, fi"om four upward, might engage
in this dance, according to the capacity of the
room. On this occasion there were sixteen couples
in the kitchen and eight couples in each of the
other rooms. The partners were arranged in rows
opposite to each other in alternating vis-a-vis, so
that when the gentleman of one couple faced his
partner on the north, he of the next couple would
face his partner on the south. The leading couple
of each room advanced between the other dancers,
bowing or courtesying, and swinging alternately
each other and every other gentleman and lady in
turn as they went on between the files of dancers,
with many stately steps and flourishes the while.

326

The clasped right hands of the swinging couples
were held as high as possible, the gentleman's left
arm akimbo, and the lady's left hand holding her
petticoats a little up, that her graceful steps and
pretty ankles might be the better seen, until they
reached the next room, where they became the
"foot couple."

The dance lasted until each of the thirty-two
couples had ted in dancing round the chimney.

As each leading couple came opposite the fire-
place in the room farthest fix>m that in which
they started, they courtesied and bowed and swung
each other, reciting in Dutch some verses which
were a sort of invocation to the spirit of friendship
and good cheer. By this fireplace stood a tall and
grinning Ganymede holding a very large tray 6lled
with glasses of spiced punch — a beverage deemed
to be a suitable preparation for a walk or a drive
home over the snowy highways. After the invo-
cation each lady was expected to taste and hand
one of the glasses to her partner, while he — with-
out tasting — handed her a smaller glass from the
same tray.

All this while the steps and flourishes must not
cease, and to succeed in draining the glasses with-
out breaking the time-beat of the steps or spilling
a drop of the liquor was the aim of each, a thing
which could hardly have been achieved without
sobriety and much previous practice. This practice
all might easily attain, for traditions tell us that fami-

327

lies of the better class among our Knickerbocker
ancestors met at each other's houses almost every
evening, save during the very longest days, for
purposes of amusement, and that among amuse-
ments dancing held the first place. Children were
allowed to take part during the first hour or two.
A healthy, hearty, happy people they seem to
have been, doing as much good and as little harm
as may be in an imperfect world, leaving to their
fortunate descendants fine examples of family af-
fection, productive industry, broad charity, and
placid content.

CHAPTER XXI
A MAN OF ENTERPRISE

CHAPTER XXI.

' A MAN OF ENTERPRISE. 1

Medical Man and

Merchant
An Early Medical Con-
vention.
A Captain of Volunteers.
Advancing Money and
Supplies.
A Solvent Debtor.
Comparative Prices.
Removal to Vermont.

"lYING in files in the old garret,

Lw / carefully docketed, were several
W hundreds, perhaps more than a
^ ^ thousand, letters, all written in the
same rather orderly-looking but
very deceptive script; for it certainly is the most
illegible hand I have ever undertaken to decipher,
and my experience has not been small. In a prize
contest it could no doubt hold its own against the
worst chirography of Horace Greeley, or even that
of Napoleon Bonaparte, which is usually conceded
to be about on a par, for legibility, with the cunei-
fomi characters of the Ninevites, in the eyes of the
unlearned.

All these hundreds of old letters, stretching over
a period of about fourteen years, were written by
Simeon Smith, M.D., once of Sharon, Connecti-
cut, but at the time that these were penned resid-
ing at Westhaven, Vermont.

Had the word been then invented. Dr. Smith
would certainly have been known as a " hustler,"
for he was a man of boundless energy, versatility,
and resource. As a physician he practically mo-

nopolizcd his immediate field, and was coDStandj-
called in consultation throu^iout a stretch of coun-
try ranging from the Hudson on the vest to tbe
Connecticut on the east, and for about twenty
miles each way north and Sfnith from Sharon.
Besides this, he was a soldier, a wholesale and retail
merchant, a heavy dealer in real estate, and ever
engaged in every local enterprise demanding
energy, courage, capital, and public spirit

Simeon Smith was a younger brother of the Rev.
C. M. Smith, and, like the latter, was bom in
Suffield, Connecticut. He came to practise in
Sharon about 1759, when he was twenty-three
or twenty-four years old. At that period the
colonies afforded little opportunity for gaining
u thorough medical education, the usual way be-
ing f<»r a young man to study with some elderly
practitioner, whom he accompanied on his rounds,
and for whom he ground, baked, and brewed the
sometimes very queer decoctions which were pre-
scribed for the unfortunate patients. How such a
student got his degree I do not know. It is cer-
tain that comparatively few of those who then
practised medicine in country places, and were
styled "doctor," appear to have been entitled to
write the consequential M.D. after their names.

It is probable that Dr. Smith received his medi-
cal education abroad ; at least, his niece, our oft-
quoted diarist Juliana, speaks of her "Uncle
Simeon" as entertaining a Thanksgiving party

333

with anecdotes of "his student days in Edin-
borough." Writing in i8o2. Dr. Smith refers to
a certain fomily event as having occurred when he
" was in Edinborough in 1757," and there are traces
extending through many years of a regular and
for that day a frequent correspondence (that is to
say, an exchange of letters as often as once or
twice in two or three years) between Dr. Smith
and two business firms, one in Edinburgh and one
in London. From the first of these he received
most of the new medical treatises as they appeared,
and other books as well, for the doctor was evi-
dently a lover of good literature ; and from the
second came surgical instruments, drugs, and all
imaginable articles, from firearms to pins. In the
letters from both of these parties there are references
which would seem to prove the existence of a per-
sonal acquaintance, while there is no evidence to
show that either of the foreign correspondents had
ever been in America.

Almost as soon as Dr. Smith arrived in Sharon
he established there a drug store which is believed
to have been one of the largest and best of its kind
in the "Old Thirteen." All the more important
drugs were imported by Dr. Smith directly from
London and Amsterdam, and were by him sup-
plied to smaller dealers in many places, including
New Haven, Hartford, Albany, and Poughkeep-
sie. The goods, of whatever sort, were first de-
livered in the ori^nal packages at the latter place.

334

and from thence were distributed by Dr. Smith's
agent Each year preceding 1775 the number
and variety of the country doctor's orders in-
creased, still importing directly from London,
Amsterdam, and various ports in the West Indies,
until almost every salable thing that could be
found anywhere in the colonies could be obtained
from this quaint, old-^shioned country store, situ-
ated at such a distance from the centers of trade.

As a medical practitioner Dr. Smith was highly
esteemed, though he did not prescribe as powerful
doses as were then customary, and did not apply
the lancet with the appalling frequency that was
then habitual.

A subject which occupied much of Dr. Smith's
thought for many years, though he was unable to
carry out his plans, was the establishment of a
school of medicine in his native State, which
should be the equal of any in the New World. This
project was not forgotten even during the stress of
the War of the Revolution. In February, 1780,
what was proudly announced as the "First Medi-
cal Society in The Thirteen United States of
America since Their Independence " held a con-
vention at Sharon by the invitation of Dr. Smith,
the members being entertained principally at his
house and those of his two brothers, the parson
and " Deacon Paul." The establishment of such
a school was a prominent topic before the conven-
tion, but nothing could be done to forward the

335

execution of the plan, either then or for many
years later, on account of the disturbed condition
of finances all through the country.

In the old garret remains a copy of " An ORA-
TION ON THE Rise and Progress of PHYSIC
IN AMERICA, pronounced before the First
Medical Society in the Thirteen United States
of AMERICA, since their INDEPENDENCE,
At their Convention held at Sharon, on the last
Day of February, 1780." This was printed in
Hartford, by Hudson & Goodwin, in 1781, in ac-
cordance with a vote of the aforesaid society.

In real estate Dr. Smith's transactions were, for
his day, extensive, embracing large tracts in Dutch-
ess and Columbia counties in New York, in Litch-
field County, Connecticut, in Berkshire County,
Massachusetts, in almost the whole line of western
Vermont, and also in Canada. At the outbreak
of the Revolution Dr. Smith's many pecuniary
interests might be supposed to have rendered
him likely to adopt the conservative side — that
is, if there had been any truth in the allegation of
the Tory party that the Whigs numbered in their
ranks " only those who had nothing to lose." But
the doctor was as active in politics as he was in
everything else, and in 1776 he headed a company
of Sharon men, who were with General Wash-
ington throughout his unfortunate Long Island cam-
paign. This company was, with the exception of
a few men who furnished their own outfits, equipped

336

at Dr. Smith's expense. In 1777 he raised and
partly equipped another company of volunteers
to resist the advance of Burgoyne, but breaking
his leg by an untimely accident, he was not able
to head his company this time as he had done the
previous year.

Dr. Smith never for one instant despaired of the
ultimate success of our arms, and never hesitated
to fill any orders for provisions, clothing, or medi-
cal stores sent to him irom the State government,
buying on his own personal security, which in his
own region was more potent than that of the State,
and taking the promissory notes of the State in
compensation.

Dr. Smith's readiness to manifest his abiding
feith in the eventual triumph of the revolting col-
onies had one result which, at the time and for a
good many years afterward, caused him no little
embarrassment.

In the struggling colony of Connecticut five
thousand pounds had meant a very large sum of
money even before the war ; and during the war,
before the Dutch loans and the French assistance
had come to our financial aid, the value of such a
sum was greater than ever. The State of Connec-
ticut had voted to issue State bonds to what was
then considered by many to be a rash amount. It
is quite possible that the doctor had been one of
those who had voted for this bond issue, for he
represented his town in the Connecticut legislature

337

for a good many sessions. If so, he was willing to
give practical support to his vote, and had signi-
fied his readiness to take five thousand pounds, pro-
posing to pay for the bonds in neat cattle or
in other provision suppHes for the troops. Gold
and silver being at a premium, and Continental
currency being at a very low valuation, this was
but an extension of the prevailing system of
barter.

His proposal to this effect was despatched by
a messenger, who was expected to reach Hart-
ford and return in about forty-eight hours, if no-
thing went amiss. But so much usually went
amiss in even so short a journey as thirty or forty
miles that no surprise would have been felt had
the time been twice as long. The surprise came
when, early in the morning of the second day,
not the messenger, but two other men on horse-
back presented themselves at the wrought-iron
gate before the big stone house, bringing a letter
from Governor Trumbull to the effect that the
horse of Dr. Smith's messenger having fallen lame,
the governor had thought best to keep the man
over for a day or two in Hartford, while, as the
matter was urgent, he sent two confidential offi-
cials who were empowered to negotiate the whole
affair with his friend the doctor.

The "confidential friends" explained that cash
in hand — solid cash, golden guineas, or Spanish
silver dollars — was the pressing need of the State,

338

and to get this they were empowered to offer a
considerable premium. Now, it so happened that
the doctor had a neighbor — as neighbors were
then counted ; this one lived about hve miles
away — who had just inherited the accumulated
stockingfiils of a miserly uncle. To this neigh-
bor the doctor forthwith betook himself, and upon
his personal note borrowed ^^3330, for which sum
the governor's " iriends " delivered a handsomely
executed and duly signed State bond for ;^5ooo.

On the afternoon of the third day after his de-
parture the doctor's own messenger returned with
a sorry horse and a sorrier tale. To avoid the
inconvenience of leaving this messenger without
a designation we will call him X.

When X had reached Hartford he proceeded
directly to the governor's office, where he was re-
ceived by two men, who, after closely question-
ing him and reading the letter, as they said they
had a right to do, being the governor's deputies,
explained that the governor was out of town for
a few days, but they could attend to everything
during his absence. Meanwhile they treated X
with a pleasing cordiality. Taking him to a cer-
tain tavern, which they assured him was the best
in the country, they saw that he had a good supper
and left him there to wait. This he did very will-
ingly, waits of three or four days being the cus-
tomary thing in the days when an absent person
could only be summoned by a messenger on horse-

339

back. Poor X did not remember how or when
he went to bed that night, but he was certain that
he did not awake till a very late hour the next
afternoon. When his head was finally clear enough
to enable him to think about it, he went out to the
stables, only to find that his fine horse had gone very
lame. Taking him to a farrier was impossible, so
the farrier was brought to the horse, and discovered
that a long and rusty nail had been driven up into
the horse's foot, causing a severe if not permanent
injury. In the course of their talk X asked the
farrier if he knew when the governor might be
expected to return.

It then appeared that the governor had not been
out of town at all. The farrier knew, because he
had seen him every day, and sometimes three or
four times a day, as he had to pass the governor's
house on his way to and from his own.

Petty frauds were frequent enough in colonial
and Revolutionary days, but frauds which might
involve those who were nearly connected with af-
feirs of state were not often heard of^ and to the
bucolic mind were almost inconceivable ; yet some-
thing flickered through the poor messenger's brain.
The lateness of the hour, his own condition, that
of his horse, and the obvious lie told by the two
so friendly clerks — perhaps all these things taken
together might mean something? If so, that mean-
ing could bode no good to his errand, though what
shape the evil might take he could not guess.

340

Proceeding to the govemoi's house as speedily
as he might, X found his Excellency already in
a greatly perturbed state of mind. Two men who
had long been employed by him in confidential
business, and especially in business relating to the
State bonds, had suddenly disappeared. They
had been seen late on the previous evening, well
mounted and carrying full saddle-bags, going west-
ward. With them had also disappeared the entire
issue of State bonds, lacking the governor's signa-
ture, but otherwise quite correct. Constables had
been sent in pursuit, but the forgers had about
sixteen hours the start of them, and tn preclectric
days that was usually equivalent to an escape, es-
pecially as the constables had started on the theory
that if the men were seen going westward they
must have intended going in the opposite direc-
tion, and some of the pursuers had gone down
the Connecticut River, and some had turned
northward.

After many a long day — not until about 17941
in fact — one of the forgers was apprehended and
brought back to Connecticut for trial, but what
the result was the old letters do not inform us.
Two other would-be supporters of the State's fi-
nances, in addition to Dr. Smith, had been vic-
timized before the forgeries had become known,
but neither of the two rendered any aid to the
doctor or the State in their persistent pursuit of
the criminals. In the end only one was appre-

34»

hended. He was discovered among the refugee
Tories in New Brunswick by Dr. Smith himself,
while on a prospecting tour he was making, on
the outlook for mines of coal or of iron ore.

The forgeries were said to have been singularly
perfect. Dr. Smith was well acquainted with the
handwriting of Governor Trumbull, and the forged
letter, when compared with the undoubted letters
of the governor which Dr. Smith had received
at various times, though' it might have excited
the suspicions of a modem chirographic expert,
was acknowledged by the governor to be perfect
enough to have deceived himself For a time the
existence of these forged bonds caused much per-
plexity to the State government, and would have
caused still more had intelligence concerning them
been published through the length and breadth of
the land, as it would now be. There were a (tw
advantages to be derived from the slow methods
of the time.

In mines of every description Dr. Smith was
always interested. When buying real estate he
always had a clause inserted granting to his owner-
ship all the mines thereon, "whether opened or yet
to be discovered," and whenever he sold any land,
let the same be much or little, all such rights were
expressly reserved by him. His Edinburgh corre-
spondent had standing orders always to send him
any new book of importance concerning mines and
their workings. Some of these, both in Latin and

34^

in English, still remain in the old home, and prob-
ably there are others at his fine Vermont residence.
But I do not know that any appreciable part of
the two fortunes which the doctor made came from
his mining ventures.

By the close of the Revolutionary War, when
he had time to think about it. Dr. Smith found
that, to use a modernism, he had "expanded too
much." The times were hard, very, very hard, for
all. The Continental money had fiillen so low as
to be practically worthless. Gold and silver had
almost disappeared. Barter took the place of coin,
and when a dtbt could not be paid in produce or
in goods, then there was the debtors' prison ; and
into that most illogical of all legal devices must the
honestest of debtors helplessly fell if his creditors
were pressing.

The illiberal, unjust, and unwise system of im-
prisonment for debt was about as disastrous in its
results upon the creditors as upon the debtors, but
it was an astonishing number of years before any
appreciable number of the fomier seem to have
perceived this fact

To show the operation of the generally de-
pressed state of finances, it may be well to quote
some of the prices brought by imported articles,
and the proportionately small rates received for ar-
ticles of home production, as shown by Dr. Smith's
account-books for 1785-90, the items being taken
at random.

343

Beef, by the quarter, brought one cent per
pound; sewing-silk was sold at "six pence per
yard" A pound of sugar was "two shillings
thripence " ; a bushel of oats was " two shillings
sixpence." Five hundred feet of pine boards
brought one pound two shillings and sixpence,
and two " Bandanna " handkerchiefs were worth as
much. But the worst state of things is shown by
the price, or rather the no-price, of the Continental
currency, six hundred and sixty-nine Continental
dollars being exchanged (in 1785) for only five
pounds and four cents of what was known in Con-
necticut as " York State money," which was rated
at about half the value of the pound sterling. As
paper money was so nearly valueless, the gold and
silver coins of foreign nations were employed when
barter would not suffice. This must have added
greatly to the difficulties of business. In 1794
the sum of one hundred and thirty pounds and
some shillings was paid in " pistoles," " pieces jo-
hannis," Spanish dollars, guineas, and three New
York bank bills, the latter at a considerable dis-
count. Each piece of the gold was weighed sepa-
rately and no two of the same nominal value were
rated alike.

The demands made against Dr. Smith grew
more and more urgent, but, full of resources as
he was, he kept on satisfying them until at last,
four years after the close of the war, he was obliged
to realize that there was no relief in the near future.

344

and that without putting himself beyond the juris-
diction of his State he would eventually find him-
self at the mercy of some narrow-minded creditor
who could put his debtor in a place where the
most rcsourcefiil of living men would find himself
as helpless as the dead Julius Cxsar.

Summoning his brother, the Rev. C. M. Smith,
and the latter's son (the " brother Jack " of the
diary), then a stripling lawyer of twenty-two years,
the doctor laid his case before them, and also his
plans to retrieve his fortunes. He made over to
his brother the larger and more valuable parts of
his property in and about Sharon, on the condition
that his brother should satisfy all the most pressing
of his debts. By realizing upon the more imme-
diately salable portions of the doctor's property, as
well as of his own and that of his wife, the parson,
after a time, was able to accomplish this. As usual,
the biggest creditors were the least pressing. The
man who had furnished the ^3330 to buy the
forged note, having always received his interest
with regularity, was present at this interview of
the brothers, and would not accept of any security
for the amount which was still due him; but this
was eventually paid, together with all the other
debts, in full.

Besides a good many farms and other odd bits
of real estate scattered through three States, the
doctor still possessed about twenty-five thousand
acres of land in Vermont; and to this youngest of

the thirteen States he and his wife wended their
toilsome way. It is at this point that his many
letters begin. The new State needed countless
things, and the doctor was the man to supply
them. In every letter there is a demand for this,
that, or the other thing that is " absolutely neces-
sary and must be sent forthwith." Herds of cattle,
unnumbered yokes of oxen, — "because they can
travel these trackless wilds better than horses," —
wagons, cart wheels, sleds, "tools for a wheelright
and a man to use them," a '* farrier and all the
tools for his trade," "machinery for a sawmill of
the biggest kind," a " linnen and a woollen loom
and a weaver for each of them, good ones who
understand their trade," were among the things
sent for, while his old correspondents in Great
Britain, Holland, and the West Indies forwarded
to his new abode and his new store all the things
which they had been wont to supply to his first.

In Vermont all of the doctor's enterprises pros-
pered, and as rapidly as possible both principal
and interest of all the debts which he had left
behind were repaid; and when he wrote his last
letter to " Dear Johnny," a month or two before
his death, in 1804, he was able to say;

" At last I owe no man on earth a penny that
cannot be paid at a moment's notice, and I now
have leisure to devote to my favorite project, —
the establishment in my native State of as fine a

346

Medical CoUege and Hospital connected therewith
as may be in any Country. 1 am not yet seventy,
my health is good. I hope to live to see it started.
In my time Great 'things have happened and
greater are to come. I wish I could live a Thou-
sand Years! I suppose your Father will shake
his head over this, but I believe the Lord has a
great work for this Country to do, and / want to

In spite of this desire and his good health, the
brave old doctor had not reached seventy yeais
when he calmly fell asleep. All his worldly affairs
were in good condition, and he left to his widow
and to his favorite nephew what, for his day, was
considered the large fortune of something over one
hundred thousand dollars.

CHAPTER XXII
A COUNTRY PARSON'S USEFUL LIFE

Ancestors.
Personal Characteristics.

Small-pox in Sharon.
"Old Jack" and "Billy

G ."

A Lesson in Kindliness.

Influence with Indians.

The Sabbath Made for

Man.

jHE Rev. Cotton Mather Smith was

T,^ a member of what the "Auto-
S crat of the Breakfast Table" and
** Richard Grant White uspd to de-
light in calling the Brahman class
of New England, meaning the descendants of the
early ministers and magistrates of the Plymouth,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut colonies.

The ministers from whom he was descended
were the Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield, and
the Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, while he
was collaterally related to all the " preaching Ma-
thers," and to the Rev. John Cotton of Boston.
Mr. Smith's father, grandfather, and great-grand-
father of his own sumame all fought in the numer-
ous colonial wars. A colonial governor and a
major-general were numbered among his ancestors,
besides many magistrates and officers of lesser
rank. Hence it is not wonderful that while Mr.
Smith was a man of peace he was also in favor of
fighting in a good cause.

The Rev. A. R. Robbins of Norfolk, Connecti-
cut, who was for many years the beloved pastor of
349

35°

the Congregational church in that place, was a
lifelong friend of Mr. Smith's, never allowing a
year to pass without an exchange of visits, though
this was not an easy matter with the twenty miles
of steep hills intervening. A son of the former,
the Rev. Thomas Robbins of Hartford, Connecti-
cut, well remembered his father's friend, and writing
in 1850 said:

"The Rev. Cotton Mather Smith was min-
ister of a parish in the immediate neighborhood
of my father's (Norfolk, Connecticut), and was
often a visitor at our house in my early years.
My personal acquaintance with him was chiefly
in that period. . . . Mr. Smith was rather
tall . . . and united great benignity and acute
intelligence in his expression. His manners were
remarkably polished, so that he might have ap-
peared to advantage even in a Court; they were a
delightful compound of simplicity, grace and dig-
nity; while on the other hand they were entirely
free from hauteur or ostentation, and he could
make the humblest man in the community feel at
home in his company. . . , He never performed
an act or uttered a word that was fitted needlessly
to wound others or to lessen the influence of his
own fine character. ... He had a good deal of
unction in the pulpit, but his manner was simple,
natural and graceful."

The sermons of that time were usually written

out in ftill, and read in a more or less pleasing
manner; but though the outlines of Mr. Smith's
sermons were carefully thought out in the study,
he trusted to the inspiration of the moment for the
dress in which he offered them to his congregation.
Many instances of his eloquence are still tradition-
ally related. As it is a matter of record that the
church of the Sharon pastor was twice enlarged
during his ministry to accommodate the increasing
numbers of his hearers, and that persons residing
in parishes from ten to twenty-five miles distant
from his own were among the frequent attendants
at his ministrations, it is probable that his confi-
dence in the inspiration of the moment was well
founded.

Though Mr. Smith's feme as an eloquent
preacher was locally great, it was as a pastor that
he was longest remembered.

In my girlhood there were still many old per-
sons who had known him, and the mingled feel-
ing of reverence and affection with which they
mentioned his name was pleasant to know. The
anecdotes were many, showing him in many lights.
Some persons told how, " during the awful small-
pox winter, when the weather was as cold as was
ever known in New England, he and his heroic
wife banished themselves for three months from
their own house, taking refuge in an outbuilding,
where their indispensable wants were supplied by
an old slave who had had the dreaded disease, that

ne 11 -atr inx xat Pf n g;. t

nnfnrr ic'-or as IK Saco. Dexnn^ x -^x^fr*^
nrracsn. * ic ■Siaim. -wiifc aier ii '^77- *fc
■9-m. lo. *-3U3rr -:1a: al j?a»:r Pxseie Seoos.'*' sai
-tiK IMC strj- "tt^ wm '.

BSSilcrLx =nr al Mr. SniJci' t :

F-ii" Tna^KTo. siraescT* Oxn zai s^?C3 lie inrs-
=»> =n!:KLar 'X IViz. -no wd jboot bral^ng aH
zzszrrr 'X Hii'tTrra i=i£ 2Z —»-->#- at ciicasc

\r^ -zr: z»t;c'j^ ;

'20 lirie oxtiical skQl
!t a: rse serrjoe ot 23T who

At. -r-i--jr-j:r -wz^-'z. ibcrvs ti»e par^oa^ smic «
!.■;—>«■. o'jrr.xrj^i ■■■■th a gentle aad kiodlr dig-
r.:TT. »*: 'r^A bv czT gTasdntbcT. who him^cll'
K.-or.^-:v rcsen:blei hi: grandaAcr in these and
KTirrr '"-ii>;:Vj, Asiong die orphans, several ot
WTMjm TT^re aVaj-s ibeitercd and cared for in the
pafsonagt. wai aie young incorrigible who, by
way of puniihmen: ibr some bult, was one fine
Siinda)' in June tbrbidden to attend morning ser-
vice. Thi; might not, nowadat's, be deemed a
severe chajtisement, but then the Sundajra gave

353

the one opportunity of the week for social inter-
course.

While the sermon was in progress, presumably
to the satisfaction of all present in the old meeting-
house, there was a movement among the boys
who filled the first gallery, and an irresistible but
half-smothered chuckle ran around among them,
as fire runs through stubble. The second or top-
most gallery, where the slaves sat, was in a still
more visible and audible commotion. Even the
decorous tenants ot the big square pews on the
ground floor seemed to find some difficulty in fol-
lowing the thread of the parson's discourse. The
parson redoubled his efforts, and at the same time
the commotion in the auditory was increasing.

The preacher stopped and looked around with
some displeasure, but more wonder. Every one
was looking in his direction, and yet no one was
looking at him. His wife was biting her lips with
a vexation belied by her laughing eyes.

The old slave Jack could stand it no longer.
Making his way behind the seats crowded by his
brethren, whose ivories were unusually exposed, to
the end of the topmost gallery, which was that in
which he presided as the self-constituted main-
tainer of discipline among his own race. Jack stepped
forth upon the flat top of the massive sounding-
beard, which was on a level with this gallery floor
and hung like a threatening extinguisher above
the pulpit. Here he was for a moment in full

354

view of the congregation, but hidden from the
parson's sight, until he reappeared returning to his
own seat, and bearing in his arms a very happy and
complacent blacVt-and-tan dog, which had been
decorated by a pair of the parson's best bands, and
then released from the durance in which he always
had to be kept on Sunday to prevent him from fol-
lowing his master to church. The eager Carlo had
found that he could not get in by the doors from
the vestibule into the body of the meeting-house,
or even by those of the first gallery, so he had as-
cended the stairs leading to the top gallery, and
then had reached the sounding-board, on which he
had been gravely seated, apparently well pleased
with himself and his ministerial garb, and, to those
who had perceptions of the ludicrous, seemed to
be mocking his unconscious master in the pulpit
beneath.

As Jack reappeared bearing the unresisting dog,
— for Carlo was a faithful friend, and cultivated no
color prejudices, — the aggrieved old slave turned
toward his master, breaking all meeting-house rules
by exclaiming, with irrepressible indignation:

" Massa, massa I Dis some mo' o' dat Bill G 's

debiltry. He got 'o be stop' somehcnu! "

This was too much. From the pulpit along the
crowded seats of the two galleries even to the de-
corous depths of the deacons' pew on the main
floor, a laughter that was more than rippling was
both seen and heard, clearly to the scandal of the

355

frowning and belligerent Jack, and perhaps to that of
some of the severer magnates of the pews. But what
would you ? The pranks as well as the misfortunes

of the mischievous Billy G were well known

but always unexpected to the little community ; and
the sense of humor is one which has seldom been
denied to kindly natured folk. The parson was
never troubled about his own dignity, probably
feeling it too firm to need protection, so he laughed
with the rest, while gently bidding Jack to relieve
the dog of his offending finery and take him home.
Then, turning to the congregation, he said that the
little boy's jest had been made without any mali-
cious intent, and without a sense of the disrespect it
would be showing to the Lord's house. The child,
he said, was too young to realize this, and "as we
would have our own sins of either wilfulness or
ignorance pardoned by our Heavenly Father, so
must we pardon the offenses of children, and espe-
cially those of the fatherless." From this he talked
on, dwelling upon the duties of all members of
Christ's church toward the younger and weaker of
the flock, until, after the benediction, " his hearers
could only greet each other silently for the tender
emotions which filled their hearts."

Neither public nor private admonition was given
to the delinquent Billy (save possibly by old Jack
in the bam), and the flow of his jokes did not
cease, though after this they were of a less public
character. In later years he went to South Caro-

356

lina, and there became a physician of some local
reputation, though dying before reaching the prime
of life. Recognizing his approaching end, he left
to Parson Smith the care of his two motherless
children and their little inheritance — a sure proof
of the confidence he had retained in the faithful
kindness of the friend who had pardoned so many
of his own boyish oflenses.

Indeed, Mr. Smith ever possessed a certain boy-
ishness of heart which, from his earliest years to
his latest, gave him great influence over the young
of all classes. While still a college student he was
associated with Dr. Jonathan Edwards in the charge
of a school which had been established among the
Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Here were
early brought into play the same powers of intel-
lect and the generous qualities of heart which dis-
tinguished him through life.

His influence over his wild pupils, which was
great, was first gained by his agility, strength, and
skill in all athletic sports, especially in marksman-
ship, in leaping and in running, in which things
it is stated that he easily excelled all his white
competitors and most Indians. The Indians could
well appreciate the young minister's superiority in
a line so peculiarly their own, and the influence it
gained over them was increased and retained by the
unfailing justice and perfect courtesy which charac-
terized all his dealings with them. "At the same
time," says Dr, Sprague, in his "Annals of the
American Pulpit," "he labored for and with them

357

with untiring diligence and corresponding success,
and became a proficient in their language while im-
parting to them his own."

Twenty years after Mr. Smith's labors in Stock-
bridge had ended, two of his former Indian pupils
accompanied Colonel Hinman's regiment on its
trying march through the wilderness to Fort Ti-
conderoga. During the dangerous illness there of
their former teacher and then chaplain, these In-
dians devoted themselves to his service, and that
of his wife after her arrival, with a touching assi-
duity. On his return to Sharon they helped to bear
his Utter for the journey, which consumed nearly
two weeks, although burdens of any kind were usu-
ally despised by their race ; and for many years
thereafter they paid him an annual visit. They
always spoke with great pride of their quondam
teacher's youthful athletic accomplishments, al-
though similar gifts were not then so unusual in
the clerical profession as they afterward became.

In Mr. Smith's time all country ministers were,
by ft)rce of circumstances rather than choice, both
fttrmers and huntsmen ; and sometimes they were
carpenters and smiths as well, and saw nothing in-
congruous in their diverse employments. Certainly
their congregations must have been the gainers by
the exercise which made their spiritual head so
physically robust, the health of the mind depend-
ing so much upon that of the body.

As an army chaplain Mr. Smith seems to have
been very successful in a more than usually difficult

3;8

situation. General Schuyler, one of the best officers
and most honorable men of our Revolutionary War,
highly esteemed by General Washington and other
officers whose good opinions were medals of honor,
was heartily disliked by the New England troops.
The reason for this dislike is well explained by Mrs.
Smith in her account of her journey to join her hus-
band at Ticonderoga. She says :

" My Husband, as Chaplain, had used his influ-
ence with the men to soften the bitterness of feeling
which so many of them entertained toward the
' Dutchman,' as they were wont somewhat con-
temptuously to style General Schuyler. The latter
is a man of the purest patriotism and of much
ability, but he was then unused to the state of
things in our Colonies of New England, whereby
a man of the best birth and breeding may yet be a
mechanic or a tradesman by reason of the poverty
of the land, and the fact that so many of our fore-
fathers had been obliged to give up all their es-
tates when for conscience sake they left the Mother
Country. On the contrary such of the settlers from
Holland as were of good family were able to bring
their worldly goods with them to the new land and
by reason of the fertility of the soil and their advan-
tageous trade with the Indians were never obliged
to resort to handicrafts for a livelihood.

"My Husband has many times told me of the
surprise of General Schuyler to find that one of our

359

Trained Band Men whom he knew to be but a
carpenter, was at the same time a man of much
influence and an office holder in his native town,
being the son of a magistrate appointed by the
Crown. He could never be brought to see that
while we in Connecticut were all so much on a
social equality, it was yet an equality on a high
plane ; while on the other hand it was difficult for
our men (so many of whom, though poor, had re-
ceived the best education the country afforded)
not to feel themselves superior to 'a parcel of
stupid Dutchmen', (thus discourteously, I grieve
to say, were they often referred to), many of whom
spoke but imperfect English and almost none of
whom had received a college training. My Hus-
band had always been striving to bring about a
better understanding between the troops of Con-
necticut and those of New York, and had thus
gained and still retains the active friendship of
General Schuyler, while he was always much liked
as well as reverenced by all the soldiers in the
command."

The Rev. Dr. McEwing of New London, Con-
necticut, writing in 185 J, when there were still
living many old people who remembered Mr.
Smith, says:

" The American Revolution found Mr. Smith
in the maturity of his powers, wielding, within

360

his sphere, a great influence. He had dedi-
cated himself to the Christian ministry, but this
did not make him too sacred to give himself
to his country. His brethren, the Congregational
clergymen of New England, were, at large, distin-
guished patriots in the struggle for independence.
None of them in the incipient movements of the
Revolution, or in providing for the hardships and
conflicts of the War, brought the people of their
charges up to a higher tone of action than did the
Pastor of Sharon. His sermons, his prayers, the
hymns he gave to the choir, were impulsive to
patriotism, , . . but domestic action did not satisfy
him. Into the momentous campaign of 1775 he
entered as chaplain to a regiment in the Northern
Army. His influence in producing good order
and cultivating morals in the camp, in consoling
the sick " (and, it might be added, in taking
care of them), "and in inspiring the army with
firmness and intrepidity attracted the admiration
of all."

In Sedgwick's *' History of Sharon " it is stated :

" Parson Smith, like the other clergymen of
the day, was a most ardent and decided Whig, and
his personal influence contributed not a little to
lead the public mind in the right channel. . . ,
The intelligence of the battle of Lexington was
brought to Sharon on the Sabbath, and Mr. Smith

36i

at the close of the morning exercises, announced it
from the pulpit and made some remarks tending to
arouse the spirit of the people to firmness and re-
sistance. Immediately after the congregation was
dismissed, the militia and volunteers, to the num-
ber of one hundred men, paraded on the west
side of the street, south of the meeting-house
and prepared to march immediately to the scene
of action."

After Mr. Smith's enforced return from the
fighting field he still continued his active work
of inspiring the soldiers, keeping the home-stay-
ers up to their duty as providers for those in the
field, and comforting those who had sent, and
sometimes those who had lost, their best be-
loved.

In still more practical ways was manifested the
parson's earnestness in the cause. During this war
the only sources of food-supply were to be found
in the unharassed portions of the thirteen States,
and it was as essential that every possible spear of
grain or hill of com should be raised to supply
provisions for the army as it was to ftimtsh the men
and ammunition.

During the early part of one week in the sum-
mer of 1 779 a very large quantity of wheat had
been cut by the Sharon farmers, and bound into
sheaves, and these, in view of threatening rain, not
being sufficiently cured to put into the bams, had

362

been piled into shocks in such a way as to shed
the rain if it did not prove to be of too pene-
trating a quality. But this it proved to be, and
the hearts of all grew heavier and heavier, for
the continued wet was a menace of " sprouted
wheat," from which wholesome flour could not
be made.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the rain poured
down upon the wheat-fields, of which more had
been sown than ever before in the history of the
township, owing to the country's pressing needs,
and the crops per acre were greater than ever
before, as the early part of the season had been
favorable in that vicinity.

On Saturday, at sunset, the rain was still steadily
descending, but on the Sunday morning the sun
rose brilliantly. According to the creed of the
weather-wise, any change in the weather that could
be depended upon to last for more than twenty-
four hours must take place in the daytime. It
was plain to the dullest that another rain upon
the wheat would leave it in a hopeless condition.

Yet, with few exceptions, the farmers all assem-
bled at the meeting-house on the Sabbath morning,
filled with gravest apprehensions concerning the
fate of the precious wheat, and at the same time
showing a grim determination to lose it, if needs
must, rather than to do wrong.

The people usually mustered at the church a
good while before the stated service time, while

3^3

the parson was always punctual at the moment.
On this day he was descried approaching the meet-
ing-house at an even more rapid pace than usual,
and a full half-hour earlier, and not accompanied
by his femily or near neighbors.

Hastily mounting the southern flight of exterior
steps, and standing there, the parson announced that
there would be no sermons preached by him that
day. The wheat was in danger, and, in the great
struggle in which they were engaged, wheat meant
human lives. As the Sabbath was made for man,
it was plain that to save lives on that day was a
proper Sabbatical labor. He then, still standing at
the top of the steps, offered a very short prayer,
and dismissed the congregation with a benediction,
and an exhortation to all who had no endangered
wheat of their own to give their services to those
who needed them most.

So numerous were the laborers, so well and
rapidly did they all work, so briskly blew the dry-
ing wind, and so hotly shone the harvest sun, that
by the time the night dews had begun to gather
the crop had been saved.

In this labor the women and even the children
had borne their share ; for they could toss up the
wet wheat-spears by forkfuls to catch the wind and
sun as well as could the men. Very early in the morn-
ing the parson had sent his household into his own
fields, and had advised all of his near-by neighbors
of his opinion in regard to the duty of the moment.

aur T 'jcjnrj suf I jlI -anErk^d s ard as «c could
aE i:r». 3w: nitj in 3«r 'voezi ace = :iai: «' Uncic
'^iciemi Bic Cso* Psil a^gr ocrs vas aii AoolT

Sucit zi ssaso* s aucr^ jctocJLa^ bccausr ir
^ 3y ISO ^xscs '^xir tsx r vs tbc oaiy ooc ot
is£^ u TTara. isE bcra aid aboai the
•ac Pirioas. Thf? certainlv
■5ii ret iccton< oc -ac^dJes bbors or rain rccrc-
irixs ct -if! LiXif = DtsTr bcr 1 think h will be
y-jt-jni —-■■- TZf^-r 3tIi»;T^i i= 6ocsg whaterer was
:ir:i«=arv Tij acnnr:: ■"< ririfemkisgs wiiich seemed
ri^ntiKica i=. tW" "CTCs oc a=.T day o( the week.

CHAPTER XXIII

"WELL DONE. GOOD AND FAITHFUL"

A Hi:t<»!nni-"7- Sermon.

^^O^hOroM the earliest days the meet-
^V ^^ 4^ ing-house was the place to hear,

M and the minister was the person
yj Tj *** announce, all poUtical news of

O^^^^^^ importance. During the Revo-
lutionary War there was an ever-growing anx-
iety to hear from the distant "front," — so very
distant it was in those days of toilsome com-
munication ! — and on Sunday mornings, fiiUy
an hour before service time, people would begin
to gather around the meeting-house from every
direction; for it was here, if anywhere, that private
news from the army might be met. Opportunities
for sending letters home were few ; but sometimes
a packet might be received that had passed from
hand to hand. A might have happened to be
coming from the Army of the North down as far
as Albany, and there have given the packet to B,
who chanced to have business in Red Hook, at
which place he found that C was going to Pough-
keepsie, whence the latter's friend D might be
called to go to Pleasant Valley, and there find E

ready to convey the precious missive to the wait-
3«7

ing friends in Sharon, who considered intelligenct
less than a fortnight old as fresh news.

In the autumn of 1777 it was many weeks since
one of these rare bundles of letters from the North-
ern army had reached Sharon. Sad to sternness were
the faces which gathered about the high steps of the
meeting-house on a certain bright October morning.

For a long time everj'thing had seemed to be
going against the revolting colonies. They had
IcMt New York, Newport, Ticonderoga, and Phila-
delphia, had suffered wasting defeats on Long
Island and at Fort Washington, and been badly-
beaten at Brandywine and Germantown. To off-
set these losses were only the victory at Trenton
and the partial success at Princeton. The British
controlled the Lower Hudson, and made destructive
raids upon southern Connecticut, marking their
course by the ashes of defenseless towns and the
blood of non-combatants.

On the north the advance of Burgoyne had been
nearly unchecked. On the west, in the State of
New York, lay the notoriously Royalist county of
Dutchess. Thus this part of western Connecticut
seemed to lie between three fires, and, unprotected
as it was left because nearly all its able-bodied men
were in Gates's army, it had many and grave rea-
sons for apprehension. When the eycsof one met
those of another, there was an unuttered question
in every glance.

While the near-by members of the congregation

3^9

came on foot, probably most of those from a dis-
tance arrived on horseback. The meeting-house
itself I can delineate from the descriptions given
me by my father, Robett Worthington Smith, who
remembered it well, as it was not taken down until
1824, having been used for sixty-one years. The
house was about eighty feet by sixty in dimensions,
and stood about midway in the broad street, and
nearly in front of the present edifice, upon a some-
what steep pitch of rocks which has since been
blasted away and filled in, so that only a gentle
green slope remains.

The house had three doors of entrance, each
reached by long flights of stairs on the north, east,
and south sides. The greatest length of the
meeting-house was from north to south, but the
three main aisles, one quite broad and the other
two narrower, ran from east to west, while short
cross-aisles connected the north and south doors
with the main side aisles. On the west side,
reached by a flight of steps some sixteen feet in
height, was the lofty pulpit, overhung by the
cumbrous extinguisher-like sounding-board. The
square pews were divided into three groups, the
middle group being for femilies, that on the south
side for maidens who had no family ties and did
not belong to the choir, and for widows ; that on
the north side was reserved for single men who did
not sing. The front pews of the central group
were considered the posts of honor.

37°

Around three sides of the building ran high gal-
leries, the lower one opposite the pulpit containing
the choir. Starting from the center of the choir,
the bass and counter-singers tapered off toward the
north side gallery, where sat the taller boys nearest
the choir, and after them the smaller boys nearer
to the pulpit. Starting again from the middle of
the choir and going south, the " air " and " second "
singers (wearing ftinny little close, white caps in-
stead of the big bonnets, which were supposed to,
and probably did, break the volume of the wearers'
voices) shaded off by soft gradations to young
girls who held hymn-books and tried to appear
unconscious of the fact that there were boys (with
eyes) in the opposite gallery. Over the first ran a
second but narrower gallery, set apart, the one side
for the male and the other for the female slaves.

Into the church which was built in 1824, near
to the old one, stoves were immediately placed ; but
in that in which Parson Smith preached no such
comfort was known. This building was finished
in 1 768, and though there were no fireplaces, the
danger of setting fire to their new church by means
of the foot-stoves began immediately to exercise
the minds of the church-members, and a fine of
ten shillings was exacted for each foot-stove that
might be carelessly left within the church after the
hours of service.

At the last stroke of the bell, on a certain Sun-
day of late October in 1777,3 quick, emphatic

37^

footfall rang on the stone step leading from the
ground to the southern entrance, and all in the
building rose, not so much to show their deference
to the pastor whom they all loved as to manifest
their reverence to the ordained servant of their
common Master. As the preacher came down the
aisle he gravely and graciously acknowledged the
bows and courtesies of the people in the pews.
After ascending the stairs to the pulpit, he paused
a moment to bow to the front, then to the right,
and then to the left. This was the signal that all
might now be seated, and in the general soft rustle
that ensued the pastor waited with bowed head.

On this day both prayers and hymns seemed
prophetic — at least, every person who told of it
long after always said so. When the text was
announced, "Watchman, what of the night? The
watchman saith. The morning cometh," its last
three words rang out with such a clarion tone that
all present felt that this was to be "a field day with
the Parson." Earnest sometimes to vehemence,
gifted with a melodious and powerful voice, and
glowing with natural eloquence, Mr. Smith's ser-
mons never lacked originality and force, and on
this day his flock thought him inspired as with
faithful stroke he drew the picture of an oppressed
people struggling for liberty against fearful odds.
Tears coursed unrestrained down cheeks better
accustomed to the touch of snow and wind, as
the late reverses were recounted, until some of the

older members began to wonder "what Parson
could be thinking of, to discourage the people
so ? " Then suddenly his tone changed. " Our
weakness," he said, "is the Lord's opportunity.
He has permitted our past humiliation that our
sins might be punished and that He might show
us that He is mighty to save. He has promised
to succor those who look to Him for their help,
and He is taithful who has promised." Then,
kindling as with prophetic fire, his fece glowing,
his lithe form dilating and quivering with feel-
ing, he triumphantly exclaimed:

"Behold I the morning now cometh. I see
its beams already gilding the mountain tops. Its
brightness is already bursting over all the land."
He closed his Bible and stood with uplifted hand,
while a silence, as of expectation, fell alike upon the
preacher and his hearers. Then, during the solemn
hush which preceded the benediction, could be dis-
tinguished from afar the hasty clatter of a horseman
dashing into the village from the north. Faces turn
toward the doors, but not a whisper breaks the hush.
All know that the sacred stillness of a New Eng-
land Sabbath would not be thus broken without
good reason. The eager horseman makes directly
for the church. Hope is triumphant over fear, but
with hope is mingled terror, and anxious eyes blaze
out from blanched faces as the rider, springing from
his horse, enters the church, his spurs clanking
along the uncarpeted floor and up the pulpit stairs.

The parson, his tare tlushin<j; with the j()\ ot
a hojx' tulhlU'cl, read onlx the three worIs,
" Burgoyne has surrendered," and then burst
into honorable tears. The next moment, calmed
and solemn, he said, " Let us thank God for this
great mercy/' And moved by a common impulse,
the whole congregation rose to the Puritan posture
of prayer — the erect posture of the Ironsides, who
prayed and fought and kept their powder dry ; and
stern and self-contained as they were, they thought
it no shame to shed tears of thankfulness.

I have heard this story so often, not from those
who had been present, of course, but from those
whose parents had related it to them, that I can
hardly realize that I, too, was not there to feel
the haunting anxiety, the thrilling hope, the over-
whelming joy of that glorious news.

The country parson's duties in colonial days
embraced all that a similar charge now implies,
and some that the modern minister knows nothing
of He was in all things expected to be the leader
of his people. They looked to him for example
in things political, social, and educational as well
as in things theological, and it must in common
justice be said that the pastor who foiled to fulfil
these expectations to the best of his ability was
rarely found.

His duties were so many and so diverse that it
was well that he had not also to contend with the
rush, hurry, and consequent pressure of our own

374

time. He had to work with hands as well as
head, but he had not to compete with brilliant
minds all over the continent whose Sunday uttep
ances could be read at the Monday morning break-
fest-tables of his deacons and elders, and compared
with his own. Each pastor had the sick, the poor,
the vicious, and the uncultured of his own small
field to care for and struggle to bring to better
circumstances and to higher ideals ; but he did not
have to concern himself about similar conditions
and responsibilities all over the world; and if he
did not seem to accomplish all that the same man
would do in these days, he perhaps left a deeper
impression on the minds of those among whom he
lived and labored. The very long pastorates of that
time would be almost a physical impossibility now.

There then existed no prejudice to long periods
of candidacy. It was telt that the relation between
pastor and flock should be, as it generally was,
permanent, and should not be entered upon with-
out due deliberation. Mr. Smith preached in
Sharon as a candidate for more than a year, and
was finally ordained pastor in August, 1755. In
1805 he preached his half-century sermon from the
text: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace; . . . for mine eyes have seen thy salvation"
(Luke ii. 29, 30).

After this Mr. Smith survived but little more
than a year, dying in November, 1806. His
greatly lamented wife had died six years before

]7S

while in Albany, visiting her daughter, Mrs.
Radcliff.

Thomas, the elder son of the Rev. and Mrs.
Cotton Mather Smith, died at the age of nineteen.
Elizabeth, their eldest daughter, married Dr. Lem-
uel Wheeler, a surgeon at one time attached to
General Washington's command, and afterward
practising at Red Hook, now Tivoli, New York.
Mrs. Wheeler left two daughters, one of whom
became the wife of the Hon. John Davenport of
New Haven, Connecticut, and the other was mar-
ried to Mr. Hubert Van Waganen of Poughkeep-
sie. New York.

The youngest daughter, Mary, married the Rev.
Daniel Smith, for many years the pastor of the
Congregational Church of Stamford, Connecticut.
Years after the latter's decease it was discovered
that he also was descended from the Rev. Henry
Smith of Wethersfield. She left a son and daugh-
ter. The first became the Rev. Thomas Mather
Smith, for many years the head of the Theological
Seminary at Gambler, Ohio. He was father of
the Rev. John Cotton Smith, D.D., for more than
twenty years the much-loved rector of the Church
of the Ascension in New York city, dying in 1882.
The sister of the Rev. T. M. Smith married Milo
L. North, M.D., an eminent physician of Hartford,
Connecticut, and Saratoga, New York.

Juliana, the diarist to whom we are so much in-
debted, married, as before stated, the Hon. Jacob

RadclifF, a member of the Supreme Court of Judi-
cature of the State of New York, and for three
terms mayor of New York city. Mrs. Radcliff
died in 1823, leaving two daughters. The elder of
these, Maria, married Mr. W. Tillman of Troy, New-
York, while the younger, Julia, married an English
gentleman named Spencer, who settled in Eliza-
beth, New Jersey.

From all of Parson Smith's three daughters
have descended noble, strong, and sweet men and
women. The only one of his sons who survived
to an adult age was John Cotton Smith, who early
entered poUtical life and left it only with the
disruption of the Federal party, to which he was
attached. He was the last Federal governor of
his State, retiring in 1817 — "the most popular
man of an unpopular party," says S. G. Goodrich,
in his " Recollections." The correspondence be-
tween Parson Smith and this son, extending at
intervals from 1779 to 1806, is a beautiful record
of paternal and filial affection. From those closely
written foolscap sheets of coarse but excellent linen
paper have been gleaned many of the facts relating
to domestic life which have been inserted in these

A FINE IS INCUUED IP IHIS BOOK I
NOT .KEXUMf^r^.^

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